--- title: A departing partner was accused of taking a firm's papers. The Board ruled ownership follows the signature. description: A Kanpur firm accused a departing partner of walking off with its records. The Board found no evidence, and held that working papers belong to the signing accountant, not the firm. case_number: BOD 822/2025 file_number: PR/392/2021/DD/393/2021/BOD/822/2025 forum: board-of-discipline institute: icai decided_on: 2025-09-26 outcome: Not guilty clauses: Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule order_pdf: https://disc.icai.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/11.-BOD-822-2025.pdf published: 2026-09-07 author: Jainam Shah keywords: bod 822 2025, item 2 part iv first schedule, other misconduct, ownership of audit working papers, partnership dispute chartered accountants, board of discipline not guilty source: /icai/board-of-discipline/bod-822-2025 --- # A departing partner was accused of taking a firm's papers. The Board ruled ownership follows the signature. A chartered accountant spent four years as a partner in a Kanpur firm before his fellow partners voted to remove him over conduct the record never spells out. What he was said to have carried out the door with him became the subject of a complaint to the Institute.[^parties] ## What happened ```timeline A chartered accountant is admitted as a partner in an established Kanpur firm. Four years in, the other partners unanimously resolve to remove him, citing unethical behaviour they do not detail. The firm accuses him of a great deal once he is gone: demanding a large sum to withdraw his name from a bank-empanelment list so the firm could not get certain audit work, leaving behind disputed dues running into several lakh rupees, backdating a client company's auditor- appointment paperwork, and signing that company's financial statements in the firm's name after he had already left it. A screening opinion at the Institute clears him of all of that months before any hearing is held. What survives is a narrower accusation — that when he left, he took important records and business documents belonging to the firm with him, without asking any of the remaining partners first. At the hearing, the firm produces nothing to show that any document actually went missing, and the former partner denies taking anything at all. The Board goes further than simply weighing the evidence. It looks at whose signature is on the company's audited financial statements, and holds that the working papers behind them belong to that signing accountant, not to whichever firm he happened to belong to when he signed them. ``` The complaint's own words, at the point the Board actually examined them, were about the man having "taken away with himself all the important records and relevant business documents" belonging to the firm (para 8) — a broader claim than any specific set of audit files, and one the firm never backed with anything beyond the assertion itself. The respondent met that gap head-on. He pointed out that the case against him had been argued using the language of audit working papers and engagement documentation — concepts drawn from professional auditing standards — when the complaint itself had never used that language at all (para 12). Whatever he was accused of taking, he said, it was not that. ## The clause **Item (2) of Part IV** of the First Schedule is the catch-all for Other Misconduct: a member is guilty under it if, in the Council's opinion, conduct — whether or not connected to professional work — brings disrepute to the profession or to the Institute.[^item-iv-2] It carries no fixed list of what counts; the Board decides case by case whether conduct meets that description. Here it was used to frame a very specific allegation: that a partner leaving a firm had taken its papers with him. The Board found that charge not established, and went on to hold that even if papers had changed hands, some of them were never the firm's to claim in the first place. ## What the respondent said He denied taking anything at all. Beyond that denial, his defence turned on what he had actually been accused of rather than what the case against him had become: the complaint spoke of "important records and relevant business documents," while the finding against him, as the Director (Discipline) had framed it, rested on professional-standards concepts — audit working papers and engagement documentation — that the complaint had never invoked (para 12). He should not, he argued, answer for an allegation nobody had actually made. He added that some of the documents in question were, in his view, personal to him rather than the firm's property, and that the firm's own failure to produce any of the material it said was missing told against the genuineness of the claim (para 13). ## What the Board held The Board confined itself to the one charge that had survived screening — the records allegedly taken — after noting that the rest of the complaint had already been cleared by the Director (Discipline)'s prima facie opinion, with which the Board concurred (para 14). As filed, that surviving allegation had named one client company; a second was added later (para 15), but the Board found no evidence behind either: > the Respondent categorically stated that no documents were taken by him. In contrast, the > Complainant failed to produce any evidence to substantiate the claim that the Respondent > removed documents of the Company at the time of his departure from the Complainant firm > (para 16) The Board then went further than the absence of evidence. It looked at who had actually signed the company's financial statements, and applied the professional standard on the point: > Standard on Quality Control (SQC) 1... provides that, unless otherwise specified by law or > regulation, audit documentation is the property of the auditor. He may at his discretion, > make portions of, or extracts from, audit documentation available to clients... (para 18) Since the respondent's own signature was on the company's financial statements, the papers behind them were his to keep, not the firm's — whatever partnership he belonged to at the time he signed: > the working papers and all related documents are deemed to be the property of the Chartered > Accountant who has signed them and in the event of any misconduct or allegation arising in > relation to such documents, the said Chartered Accountant shall be responsible (para 19) ## The order > the Respondent is 'Not Guilty' of Other Misconduct falling within the meaning of Item (2) of > Part IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949. No punishment stage follows a finding of not guilty. The Board ordered the case closed under Rule 15(2) and disposed of it.[^rule] Both parties appeared in person at a single hearing, held under four weeks before the findings were signed.[^coram] ## Why it matters *This section is ours, not the Board's.* **Audit working papers belong to whoever signed the engagement, not the firm they happened to belong to at the time.** The Board treated this as settled by professional standards, not by partnership status. If you sign financial statements, keep your own copy of the working papers before you ever leave a firm — you may need them long after the partnership ends. **An allegation has to match the case built on it, or the case collapses.** The finding against the respondent had been framed around audit documentation that the original complaint never mentioned. State precisely what was taken, and by whom, at the time you file a complaint — vague language about "records and documents" invites exactly this kind of gap. **"No evidence" is a real defence, not a formality.** The firm alleged removal but produced nothing to show any document had actually gone missing. Keep a document register at every partner's exit, so a dispute like this has something to point to besides memory. This summarises a public order and links the primary source. It is general information, not legal or professional advice. [^parties]: *CA. Ajay Bhargava (M. No. 075456)*, Kanpur, was the complainant, a partner of *M/s Bhargava Ajay & Associates*. *CA. Vivek Beriwal (M. No. 410205)*, also of Kanpur, was the respondent, admitted as a partner of that firm from 1 January 2015 and removed from it, by the other partners' unanimous resolution, from 1 January 2019. He went on to practise under a firm of his own, *M/s Beriwal Vivek & Associates*. The company whose financial statements were at the centre of the surviving charge was Alveo Healthcare Private Limited; a second company, Signa Pharma Private Limited, was named in the allegation later. [^item-iv-2]: Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule is a residual clause, distinct from the specific duties in Parts I-III: a member is guilty of Other Misconduct if, in the opinion of the Council, his conduct — whether or not related to his professional work — brings disrepute to the profession of chartered accountancy or to the Institute. [^rule]: 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 that finding and orders the complaint closed. There is no punishment hearing. [^coram]: CA. Rajendra Kumar P (Presiding Officer) and Ms. Dolly Chakrabarty, IAAS (Retd.) (Government Nominee), both in person. The hearing was held at ICAI Bhawan, Lucknow, on 1 September 2025; the findings are dated 26 September 2025.