--- title: An Ahmedabad tax raid on three political parties turned up a client list. Twelve accountants on it were reprimanded. description: Clients "donated" to political parties and got the money back in cash, minus commission. Twelve chartered accountants who ran clients into the scheme were reprimanded; the parties faced no action. case_number: BOD 752/2024 file_number: PR/G/498/2022/DD/490/2022/BOD/752/2024 forum: board-of-discipline institute: icai decided_on: 2025-12-08 punished_on: 2025-12-30 outcome: Reprimand clauses: Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule order_pdf: https://disc.icai.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/25.-BOD-752-2024.pdf published: 2026-09-07 author: Jainam Shah keywords: bod 752 2024, bod 760 2024, bod 761 2024, bod 763 2024, bod 765 2024, bod 766 2024, bod 771 2024, bod 784 2024, bod 785 2024, bod 796 2025, bod 797 2025, bod 800 2025, other misconduct item 2 part iv, bogus donation scam, political party donation scheme, section 80g 80ggb 80ggc, income tax search ahmedabad, board of discipline reprimand source: /icai/board-of-discipline/bod-752-2024 --- # An Ahmedabad tax raid on three political parties turned up a client list. Twelve accountants on it were reprimanded. An Income Tax raid on three political parties and two charitable trusts in Ahmedabad went looking for tax evasion and found, on the department's own search list, twenty-eight chartered accountants who had fed the scheme its clients.[^parties] Twelve of them answered to the Board of Discipline together, on facts none of them seriously disputed.[^files] ## What happened ```timeline An Income Tax search in Ahmedabad covers three political parties and two charitable trusts, all run by men who have turned donation receipts into a business. Twenty-eight chartered accountants surface in the department's search as the mediators who steered clients toward it. The mechanics are always the same. A client wants to shrink a taxable income. The mediator points them to the scheme and forwards their PAN and bank details over WhatsApp. The client wires a "donation" to the party's account, gets a receipt to claim against tax, and gets the same money back in cash once the mediator's commission is deducted. Under oath, the mediators and the men running the scheme describe the same routine again and again — the WhatsApp groups, the commission percentages, the couriers who move the cash. Most of the mediators do not challenge what they told the department until years later, once the Institute's complaint reaches them. Twelve of the twenty-eight are referred to the Board of Discipline on the same complaint and heard together. Each reaches for some version of the same defence — the statement was misrepresented, the only evidence is a WhatsApp chat, a referral is not a solicitation, no fee changed hands. One Board finds every one of them guilty of the same misconduct, on the same day. A differently constituted Board reprimands all twelve in a single sitting. Member after member, it records that the tax department never reopened the assessment and never touched the political parties at the centre of the scheme — and reprimands them regardless. ``` The mechanism ran through WhatsApp groups named for the party and the mediator bringing in clients — "KPI PD", "KPI FS", "KPI RT" — through which PAN cards, Aadhaar cards and bank screenshots moved from client to scheme.[^mechanism] Commission ranged from a tenth of a percent to five percent of the amount donated, and at least one of the twelve had simply split it with another of the twelve under an oral partnership, taking half of whatever the other brought in.[^clients] One member described his own admission plainly: > I accept that I was involved in Bogus Donation modus where entities used to make donation > to a political party (Namely Kisan Party of India) and received the money back in cash > after deduction of commission and claim the deduction in their Return of Income (para 15). The department's own list wobbled. Several of the twelve pointed out that the original complaint named twenty-eight members, but a later status report listed only twenty-two, with no explanation for who was dropped or why — and asked, without success, why the same courtesy had not been extended to them. ## The charge **Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule** — Other Misconduct — catches conduct that brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute, whether or not it happens in the course of practice.[^item2] It is deliberately the wide clause, not the specific one: nothing in soliciting a client or running an audit describes arranging cash-back donations for a political party, because that is not accountancy work at all. It is conduct outside any engagement, which is exactly what Item (2) exists to reach. All twelve were held guilty under this one clause and reprimanded. Nothing about the tax consequences to the clients, or the fate of the political parties and the two charitable trusts at the centre of the scheme, was decided in these proceedings — only what the twelve chartered accountants had done. ## What the members said The defences varied member to member, but fell into a handful of shapes. Several argued that their statement on oath had never been shown to them until the ICAI complaint arrived years afterward, and that once they saw it, they retracted it by affidavit within weeks — so the retraction should count as timely from the day they actually learned what they had supposedly said. A few went further and argued the statement itself was unreliable: it had been recorded under an assurance that "nothing would go against" them, making it inadmissible. Others argued the evidence was thin at the source. The department's case leaned on WhatsApp chats retrieved from other people's phones, and one member's written statement invoked a Supreme Court remark that "anything can be created and deleted on social media these days" and that such chats deserve no evidentiary weight. A recurring defence was distance: several members said they had only referred a client to someone else running the scheme, never personally arranged a donation or collected a fee, and that a referral cannot be solicitation. Two members took the opposite path and admitted the substance outright — one, a junior practitioner, said the admission before the tax department was truthful and asked the Board to read it as an honest mistake rather than guilt; another, appearing through counsel, admitted the transactions as unintentional, tied to financial pressure during the pandemic, and totalling roughly ₹65,000 over three years. Across all twelve, one fact was undisputed: the Income Tax Department had not reassessed most of their income over these transactions, and had not proceeded against the political parties or the charitable trusts at all.[^reassessment] ## What the Board held The Board treated a late retraction as worth nothing. A statement made on oath is admissible unless rebutted within a reasonable time, and in case after case the rebuttal came roughly two years later — timed, the Board observed, to the moment each member received the Institute's complaint rather than to any moment he or she actually discovered the statement was wrong. That timing "strongly suggests... that he stood by his original statement for an extended period and attempted to withdraw it only when confronted with the potential consequences of his own admissions through disciplinary proceedings" (para 16). On the "mere referral" defence, the Board looked past the label to what each member had actually done — forwarding a client's PAN card and bank details, confirming a transfer, arranging for cash to come back — and held that this was direct participation, not an introduction. And on the missing reassessments, the Board was direct about what they did and did not prove: > The Board cannot negate its findings just upon the fact that the Respondent's case was > not reopened by the Income Tax department after the alleged commission income, and > keeping in view the statement on Oath recorded under Section 131(1A)/132(4) of the Income > Tax Act, 1961, the Board found that Complainant has met the initial burden of proving the > Guilt on the part of the Respondent (para 19). Guilt, in other words, rested on what each member had admitted under oath — not on whether the tax department later chose to act on it. ## The order Every one of the twelve orders reaches the identical operative line.[^coram] The file this page follows states it plainly, and in eleven of the twelve orders it sits beside the same unresolved fact, recorded in the very paragraph that fixes the punishment: > upon consideration of the facts of the case where neither any re-assessment was done by > the Income Tax Department, nor any action was initiated against the Political Parties > involved in the instant matter... the Board decided to REPRIMAND him (punishment order, > para 3). A reprimand is the lightest punishment the Board can impose — no suspension, no fine.[^reprimand] The department that brought the complaint had not gone back to tax the commission it described in detail. The parties that took the donations, issued the receipts and paid out the cash had faced no action at all. The twelve mediators who connected clients to that machinery were the only people made to answer for it — and the lightest available answer was thought sufficient. ## Why it matters *This section is ours, not the Board's.* **A misconduct clause reaches you even outside an engagement.** Arranging donations is not accountancy work, so no clause on soliciting or auditing fit; Item (2) of Part IV exists for exactly that gap. Your conduct as a private individual is fair game. **A late retraction reads as an afterthought, not a correction.** All twelve retractions here arrived only after the Institute's complaint landed, years after the original statement. Challenge a wrong statement immediately, not once a notice forces your hand. **"I only referred the client" is not a defence.** Forwarding a PAN card and a bank screenshot over WhatsApp was treated as active participation. Do not introduce a client to an arrangement you would not put your own name to. **A light punishment reflected weak enforcement, not a small wrong.** The Board reprimanded all twelve while recording that the parties, the trusts and most members' own tax assessments went untouched. A reprimand here is not a verdict on how serious the scheme was. This summarises a public order and links the primary source. It is general information, not legal or professional advice. [^parties]: *Ms. Padmini Solanki, Deputy Director of Income Tax (Investigation), Unit-1(1), Ahmedabad* was the complainant throughout (succeeded during the proceedings by Mr. Darshan Priyadarshi). The twelve respondents were *CA. Naman Jatinkumar Shah (M. No. 158033)*, *CA. Ajit Kumar Kantilal Gajera (M. No. 173280)*, *CA. Prashant Suryakant Dalal (M. No. 037983)*, *CA. Fenil Rajeshbhai Shah (M. No. 158615)*, *CA. Pooja Kushal Shah (M. No. 152980)*, *CA. Ritesh Rameshkumar Thakkar (M. No. 130943)*, *CA. Salin Mukeshkumar Shah (M. No. 154311)*, *CA. Archit Bhavikbhai Shah (M. No. 154544)*, *CA. Nilay Anilkant Shah (M. No. 149864)*, *CA. Vikram Maganbhai Purohit (M. No. 158273)*, *CA. Deepak Kishanlal Budharaja (M. No. 142164)* and *CA. Harsh Bharat Shah (M. No. 194491)* — all of Ahmedabad except the last, of Bhayandar. The search covered three political parties (Manvadhikar National Party, Kisan Adhikar Party and Kisan Party of India) and two charitable trusts (All India Social Education Charitable Trust, run by Tribhawan Ramkalp Ojha, and Aadhar Foundation, run by Saumil Bhadiadra) — none of them a party to these disciplinary proceedings. [^files]: Twenty-eight chartered accountants were identified in the search; twelve of them were referred to the Board of Discipline by the same complainant and heard together, by consent, on identical facts and the same charge. This page follows the findings in and cites **BOD 752/2024** (file PR/G/498/2022/DD/490/2022), the file with the lowest number among the twelve and the first heard. The other eleven are **BOD 760/2024** (PR/G/499/2022/DD/491/2022), **BOD 761/2024** (PR/G/504/2022/DD/496/2022), **BOD 763/2024** (PR/G/506/2022/DD/497/2022), **BOD 765/2024** (PR/G/487/2022/DD/480/2022), **BOD 766/2024** (PR/G/505/2022/DD/38/2023), **BOD 771/2024** (PR/G/492/2022/DD/485/2022), **BOD 784/2024** (PR/G/496/2022/DD/488/2022), **BOD 785/2024** (PR/G/497/2022/DD/489/2022), **BOD 796/2025** (PR/G/484/2022/DD/477/2022), **BOD 797/2025** (PR/G/500/2022/DD/492/2022) and **BOD 800/2025** (PR/G/13/2023/DD/46/2023). All twelve findings are dated 8 December 2025 and all twelve punishment orders were passed on 30 December 2025; the findings are reproduced in full in each of the twelve PDFs, so the linked order carries the reasoning for all of them. BOD 800/2025 was heard separately, at ICAI Tower, Mumbai, with its own, more narrative findings — the respondent there admitted the substance of the charge through counsel — but it reaches the identical guilty finding under the identical clause and the identical punishment, which is why it belongs on this page rather than its own. [^mechanism]: The client's tax benefit came from claiming the "donation" as a deduction under Sections 80G, 80GGB or 80GGC of the Income-tax Act, 1961 — provisions that let a donor deduct genuine gifts to charitable institutions or political parties from taxable income. The scheme's donations were not genuine: the same money returned to the donor in cash, after a commission was deducted, once the paperwork needed to claim the deduction existed. [^clients]: The oral-partnership arrangement was between CA. Pooja Kushal Shah and CA. Archit Bhavikbhai Shah, who split proceeds from the scheme roughly equally during a short partnership around 2015–16. Commission rates described across the twelve ranged from about 0.1 percent to 5 percent of the amount donated; one member said his share was as low as 0.1 percent, another as high as 5 percent split between himself and a fellow mediator. [^item2]: Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 holds a member guilty of "Other Misconduct" if they are, in the opinion of the Council, guilty of any act or omission which brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute, whether or not it arises out of professional work. Unlike the items in Part I, which govern how a member conducts an engagement, Part IV reaches conduct with no engagement behind it at all. [^reassessment]: The one exception was CA. Archit Bhavikbhai Shah (BOD 784/2024): the Income Tax Department confirmed a completed reassessment for Assessment Year 2021-22 adding ₹3,58,654 to his income as commission, with a penalty proceeding initiated under Section 270A. His punishment order accordingly drops the "neither any re-assessment... nor any action" sentence that appears in the other eleven, reprimanding him simply "upon consideration of the facts of the case". No order records any action having been taken against the political parties or the two charitable trusts themselves. [^reprimand]: Section 21A(3) of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 gives the Board of Discipline a graduated set of punishments, of which a reprimand is the lowest, ahead of removal of the name from the Register for a limited period and a fine. Check the current sub-section before relying on any figure — the amounts have been amended. [^coram]: All twelve findings and all twelve punishment orders were passed by the same Board: CA. Rajendra Kumar P (Presiding Officer), Ms. Dolly Chakrabarty, IAAS (Retd.) (Government Nominee) and CA. Priti Savla (Member). Final hearing across eleven of the twelve matters was on 26 September 2025 at ICAI Bhawan, Ahmedabad (BOD 800/2025's final hearing was on 4 November 2025 at ICAI Tower, Mumbai); judgment was pronounced on 4 November 2025 in all twelve, findings signed 8 December 2025, and each respondent was given a separate hearing on punishment on 30 December 2025.