---
title: A chartered accountant's Twitter account insulted government officials. Its owner lost the Register for a month.
description: A chartered accountant's verified Twitter account abused Ministry of Corporate Affairs officials. He blamed a staff member, but the Board held him responsible and removed his name for a month.
case_number: BOD 827/2025
file_number: PPR/NP/32/2022-DD/50/INF/2022/BOD/827/2025
forum: board-of-discipline
institute: icai
decided_on: 2025-12-08
punished_on: 2025-12-30
outcome: Removal
clauses: Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule
order_pdf: https://disc.icai.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/39.-BOD-827-2025.pdf
published: 2026-09-07
author: Jainam Shah
keywords: bod 827 2025, item 2 part iv first schedule, conduct bringing disrepute, twitter misconduct chartered accountant, social media misconduct, suo motu proceedings icai, board of discipline removal
source: /icai/board-of-discipline/bod-827-2025
---

# A chartered accountant's Twitter account insulted government officials. Its owner lost the Register for a month.

A Kolkata chartered accountant ran a personal Twitter account that carried both professional
updates and his own opinions. When two tweets from that account turned abusive towards government
officials, responsibility for them became the question the Institute had to answer.[^parties]

## What happened

```timeline
A chartered accountant maintains a verified Twitter account under his own handle, used for a mix
of professional and personal posts, accessible from both his office laptop and his tablet.

Two tweets go out from that account attacking officials of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs,
calling them liars and idiots and suggesting they be slapped. Both are tagged to the ministry's
own official handles, making them widely visible.

When the ministry notices and the Institute asks who posted them, he says it was not him but a
staff member who had access to his devices. He changes his password, logs the account out
everywhere, withholds that staff member's salary and ends his employment.

Rather than cooperating with the Institute's disciplinary directorate, he responds to its
questions with hostility, accusing it of harassment and invoking his own political connections.

The Board hears the matter, finds that the account was his to answer for regardless of who typed
the tweets, and holds him guilty. At a separate hearing on his punishment, he asks for leniency,
and the Board removes his name from the Register for a month.
```

Two details from the record did more damage than the tweets themselves. One tweet said the "only
option is to slap MCA officers" (para 5) — not a stray remark, but language specific enough that
the Board could not read it as anything but a threat of violence dressed up as a joke. And when the
Directorate pressed him for cooperation, he did not merely decline it: he threatened to take the
matter to the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister of India (para 3).

He said he had obtained a signed statement from the staff member admitting to posting the tweets,
though the record is not consistent about whether any such statement was ever placed before the
Directorate.[^affidavit]

## The charge

- **Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule** — the Act's catch-all for other misconduct: conduct
  that, whether or not connected with professional work, brings disrepute to the profession or the
  Institute in the Council's opinion.[^itemiv2]

There was no second clause and no allegation left undecided — the whole case turned on the tweets
and what followed them. The Board found him guilty under this item (para 12).

## What the respondent said

He maintained throughout that he had not written the tweets himself. A staff member with access to
his office laptop, where his Twitter account stayed logged in, had posted them without his
knowledge. He learned of the tweets only when the Ministry raised them, and he acted quickly once
he did: changing his password, logging the account out of every device, withholding that staff
member's salary and terminating his employment.

He argued that misconduct requires *mens rea* — guilty intent — and cited legal precedent for that
proposition. Since the tweets were posted without his knowledge or intent, he asked the Board to
dismiss the charge (para 7).

## What the Board held

The Board did not dispute that someone else may have typed the words. It held instead that the
account was owned and operated in his name (para 9), so responsibility for everything posted from
it rested with him regardless of who was at the keyboard. Professional accountability extends
beyond intent (para 9) — it includes keeping control over the personal and professional channels a
member chooses to use.

His conduct toward the Directorate weighed against him separately. Accusing the investigating body
of harassment and threatening to escalate the matter to political and government authorities was,
the Board found, itself conduct falling short of what a member owes a disciplinary inquiry
(para 9).

The Board concluded:

> the Respondent is held 'Guilty' of Other Misconduct falling within the meaning of Item (2) of
> Part-IV of the First Schedule of the Chartered Accountants Act 1949 (para 12)

## The order

At a separate hearing three weeks later, he confirmed receipt of the findings and told the Board he
felt regret for the incident. He pointed to a career with no prior complaint against him and asked
for a sympathetic view, saying a punishment as severe as suspension would cause his family extreme
hardship.[^coram]

The Board went with the lightest available form of removal:

> the Board hereby resolves to remove the name of [the Respondent] from the Register of Members
> for a period of one (1) month.[^bracket]

A one-month removal sits at the bottom of what Section 21A(3) allows once guilt is found — the
alternative to a reprimand where the Board considers the conduct too serious for a reprimand alone,
but not serious enough for a longer removal or a fine.[^removal]

## Why it matters

*This section is ours, not the Board's.*

**A verified account is yours to answer for, whoever is holding the keyboard.** He was never shown
to have written the tweets, and it made no difference — ownership of the account was enough. Keep
control of any account that carries your name, professional or personal.

**A blame-the-staff defence needs more than your own account of it.** He said he had a signed
admission from the employee he blamed, but what reached the Board did not settle whether that
document ever existed on file. Get a third party's version on record at the time, not afterwards.

**How you deal with a regulator is judged on its own terms.** His hostility toward the Directorate —
invoking political connections, threatening escalation — counted against him independently of the
tweets. Cooperate with an inquiry even when you believe it unfair.

**Regret at the punishment stage can soften the outcome, not the finding.** He received the lightest
form of removal after expressing it, but the finding of guilt itself was never in question by then.
Address the substance of a complaint before it reaches that point.

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

[^parties]: *CA. Vivek Kumar Singh (M. No. 304049), Kolkata* was the respondent in this suo-motu
    ("in Re:") matter, which the Institute pursued on its own initiative rather than on a
    complaint. His Twitter handle was @Vivek_Romee.

[^itemiv2]: Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 covers
    "other misconduct": any act or omission, connected with professional work or not, that in the
    opinion of the Council brings disrepute to the profession or to the Institute.

[^affidavit]: The background section of the findings (para 2) records that, despite being
    specifically asked, the respondent "failed to produce any statement, affidavit, or proof from
    his staff member" to support his account. His own submission (paras 7-8) states that he
    "obtained and submitted a signed statement and affidavit from him admitting his
    responsibility." The findings do not reconcile the two statements, and nothing on this page
    turns on which is accurate: the Board's finding of guilt rested on ownership of the account,
    not on whether that document existed.

[^coram]: The findings, delivered 8 December 2025, were signed by CA. Rajendra Kumar P (Presiding
    Officer) and Ms. Dolly Chakrabarty (Government Nominee) — the two-member coram recorded as
    present in person. Punishment, under Section 21A(3), was passed on 30 December 2025 by a
    three-member Board sitting through video conference: the same two, joined by CA. Priti Savla
    (Member).

[^bracket]: The order names the respondent in full at this point. This page substitutes
    "[the Respondent]" for consistency with its anonymity policy; no other wording is altered.

[^removal]: Section 21A(3) gives the Board a graduated set of punishments for a member found guilty
    under the First Schedule: reprimand, removal of the name from the Register for a period the
    Board thinks fit, or a fine — or some combination. Check the current sub-section before relying
    on any figure or ceiling, as these have been amended over time.