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BOD 756/2024Not guilty

A branch election's returning officer accepted two withdrawals by phone. The Board found good faith, not misconduct.

7 min readJainam Shah

A branch election's returning officer accepted two withdrawals by phone and declared the rest elected unopposed. The Board found good faith and closed the case without a finding of misconduct.

Held
Not guiltyThe charge was not made out
Forum
Board of Discipline (First Schedule)
Clauses
Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule
Decided
File no.
PR/54/2018/DD/63/2018/BOD/756/2024
Source
Original order (PDF)

A branch election has a returning officer for one reason: so the result does not depend on anyone's word alone. In a 2016 election for the Satara Branch of WIRC, the officer took two candidates' withdrawal over the phone rather than in writing, and a losing candidate complained that the process had been tilted from the start.1

What happened#

A regional branch of the Institute schedules elections for its managing committee, with a member appointed Returning Officer to run them. Nominations close by a fixed deadline, and enough candidates come forward to fill every seat several times over.
Ahead of the deadline for withdrawing a nomination, two candidates who live outside the branch town tell the Returning Officer over the phone, on speakerphone and in front of other members, that they wish to withdraw. Their written withdrawal forms follow only later, by email, some after the cutoff time and one not at all.
On the strength of the phone calls, the Returning Officer publishes a final list naming only as many candidates as there are seats and declares them elected unopposed, leaving the two names off it.
A rival candidate complains to the Institute that the election was manipulated in favour of a particular group. A branch meeting is convened to open the sealed envelope of withdrawal forms, and it turns out one of the two never submitted a form. The election is annulled and run again months later.
A disciplinary complaint follows, and the matter takes years to reach a hearing. Two witnesses are examined on oath about the phone calls, the branch's own in-charge confirms she was in the room for one of them, and the Board weighs whether an oral withdrawal was ever good enough.

Two witnesses proved to be the whole case. The two candidates whose names were left off the final list were both examined on oath and both confirmed they had told the Returning Officer, by phone, that they wished to withdraw before the deadline (para 14).2 The branch's in-charge, examined separately, confirmed the call had taken place on speakerphone in her presence. Both candidates also told the Board they had no complaint against the Returning Officer and that their withdrawals had been voluntary.

The written forms told a different story. When the sealed envelope was finally opened, months after the election, there was no withdrawal form at all from one of the two candidates. Nobody explained why a form the Returning Officer said had been requested was simply missing.

The charge#

The complaint was framed under Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule, which covers a member whose conduct, whether or not connected to professional work, brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute.3 It does not require dishonesty for its own sake — only conduct the Council would find brings the profession into disrepute — and it is why this dispute over a branch election reached the Board of Discipline at all.

The Board found the Returning Officer not guilty under this item. It never had to decide whether electoral irregularity by itself amounts to disrepute, because it found no irregularity worth the name.

What the respondent said#

Nothing in the Chartered Accountants Act or the Central Council's directions sets out a specific procedure for a branch election, the Returning Officer said, and none did for how a candidate could withdraw. Both candidates lived outside town; both had confirmed their withdrawal by phone before the deadline, on speakerphone, in front of several members including the branch in-charge, precisely so nothing would happen unseen. The whole point, he said, was to avoid the delay and expense of a fresh election that later happened anyway.

He also raised objections that went to whether the complaint should have been heard at all: that the prima facie opinion never engaged with his challenge to its maintainability, that the complainant had no standing to bring the complaint in his personal capacity while relying on official branch records, and that an eight-year gap between the 2016 election and the 2024 prima facie opinion had prejudiced his defence, particularly since three further elections had been held in the meantime.

What the Board held#

The Board did not need the procedural objections. It went to the facts and found none of the irregularity the complaint alleged:

the Board finds that the Respondent's actions were not guided by malafide intent. The Respondent acted in good faith, based on telephonic confirmations received from the candidates concerned, and there is no evidence that his conduct brought disrepute to the profession or the Institute (para 16)

The absence of any written rule on how a branch candidate withdraws worked in the Returning Officer's favour: with no prescribed procedure to depart from, a phone call witnessed by others was not, on these facts, misconduct.

The Board also had something to say about the complaint itself. The complainant, a chartered accountant, had cited a clause in the statutory complaint form that does not exist in the Act — an error he admitted was typographical, but one the Board recorded it viewed "with displeasure" from a professional filing a formal charge against another member (para 15).

The order#

in the considered opinion of the Board, the Respondent is held 'Not Guilty' of Other Misconduct falling within the meaning of Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule of the Chartered Accountants Act 1949

No punishment stage follows a not-guilty finding. The Board ordered the complaint closed under Rule 15(2) and disposed of the case.4 The findings had taken close to eight years to reach a hearing from the original election.5 They were signed by a Board sitting in person in Mumbai.6

Why it matters#

This section is ours, not the Board's.

A phone call, witnessed, can outweigh a missing form. Two candidates and a branch office-bearer independently confirmed the withdrawal calls under oath, and that carried more weight than the absent paperwork. If you rely on an oral confirmation for anything procedural, get a witness in the room and a written record the same day.

No prescribed procedure is not a licence — it is a gap that could go either way. The Board accepted informality here only because nothing forbade it and nothing suggested bad faith. Where a process has no rulebook, write your own before you need one.

A complaint document is a professional filing, not a formality. The Board noted, unprompted, that the complainant had cited a non-existent clause. Cite the actual item and part before you send a complaint against a fellow member.

This summarises a public order and links the primary source. It is general information, not legal or professional advice.

Footnotes#

  1. CA. Makarand Narayan Joshi (M.No. 107605), Satara was the complainant, an unsuccessful candidate in the annulled election. CA. Sarang Satish Kolhapure (M.No. 127080), Satara was the respondent, appointed Returning Officer for the 2016 elections to the Managing Committee of the Satara Branch of the Western India Regional Council. ↩

  2. The two candidates were CA. Pravina Oswal and CA. S. N. Godbole, neither a party to this case. The branch in-charge who corroborated their account was CA. Reshma R. Jadhav. ↩

  3. Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule covers a member, in practice or not, whose conduct — whether or not connected to their professional work — the Council considers brings disrepute to the profession or the Institute. It is the First Schedule's general "other misconduct" clause, used where no more specific item fits. ↩

  4. Rule 15(2) of the Chartered Accountants (Procedure of Investigations of Professional and Other Misconduct and Conduct of Cases) Rules, 2007 — where the Board finds a member not guilty, it records the finding and orders the complaint closed. There is no punishment hearing. ↩

  5. The election was scheduled for 6 February 2016; nominations closed 25 January 2016; withdrawals were due by 6 PM on 29 January 2016. The complainant petitioned the Institute on 25 February 2016. A branch meeting opened the sealed withdrawal envelope on 26 March 2016 and the election was annulled; fresh elections were held on 20 May 2016. The respondent's account puts the disciplinary complaint at February 2018 and the prima facie opinion at July 2024, communicated in December 2024. ↩

  6. CA. Rajendra Kumar P (Presiding Officer), Ms. Dolly Chakrabarty, IAAS (Retd.) (Government Nominee) and CA. Priti Savla (Member), all present in person. The matter was part-heard on 30 July 2025 and concluded on 4 November 2025 at ICAI Tower, Mumbai; findings were signed on 8 December 2025. ↩

Written by Jainam Shah. Found guilty under Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule; the Board ordered a not guilty. General information, not legal or professional advice — read the order itself before relying on it.

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