--- title: A chartered accountant mocked the Finance Minister during a portal outage. The Board acquitted, and warned anyway. description: During the 2025 Income Tax portal outage, a chartered accountant called officials incompetent and mocked the Finance Minister on X, then deleted the post the same day. The Board acquitted, and warned. case_number: BOD 853/2026 file_number: PPR/MISC/290/2025/DD/30/INF/2025/BOD/853/2026 forum: board-of-discipline institute: icai decided_on: 2026-07-27 outcome: Not guilty clauses: Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule order_pdf: https://disc.icai.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/11.-BOD-853-2026.pdf published: 2026-08-29 author: Jainam Shah keywords: bod 853 2026, other misconduct chartered accountant, item 2 part iv first schedule, social media post disciplinary proceedings, income tax portal outage, information based complaint, board of discipline not guilty source: /icai/board-of-discipline/bod-853-2026 --- # A chartered accountant mocked the Finance Minister during a portal outage. The Board acquitted, and warned anyway. A chartered accountant in Jaipur posted an angry tweet about the Finance Minister during a portal outage that had stalled his filings. He deleted it within the day, but the Institute proceeded against him anyway.[^parties] ## What happened ```timeline The Income Tax Portal breaks down during the peak tax audit and return filing season. Chartered accountants across the country are unable to complete statutory filings for their clients, who are themselves anxious about the approaching deadlines. A Jaipur chartered accountant, working under that pressure and by his own account also unwell at the time, posts on X. He calls the officials behind the failure "incompetent," calls on the Finance Minister to resign, shares an image mocking her, and runs a poll asking whether she is the worst finance minister the country has had. He takes the post down the same day. The Institute takes up the matter anyway, treating the post as information rather than as a private complaint, and its screening authority forms the initial view that the language went beyond fair criticism into a personal attack on a constitutional office-holder. Before the Board, the respondent does not deny writing the post. He apologises without condition, explains the pressure he was under, and says he has learnt from the episode. The Board accepts that the language was inappropriate but finds no misconduct in it. It closes the case — and adds, on the record, that it expects better from him going forward. ``` There was no complainant to answer to. The proceedings arose from the post itself, not from anyone's complaint about it, and the file number carries "INF" — information — rather than a complaint reference (para 1).[^coram] ## The clause **Item (2) of Part IV** of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 covers conduct that, in the opinion of the Council or its Boards, brings disrepute to the profession.[^item2p4] It is not confined to a member's professional work. It reaches what a member says and does in public, on his own account, when that reflects on the profession he belongs to. Nothing here concerned any client's audit, return or fee. The question was narrower: whether one tweet, posted during a real crisis and taken down the same day, was disrepute of that kind. The Board held it was not, and closed the case not guilty. ## What the respondent said He did not dispute writing the post. He apologised for it instead — unconditionally, and before the Board had even asked him to (para 7). At the hearing he went further, saying he was "not attempting to justify even '0.01%'" of the language he had used (para 12). He set out the pressure he was under: the portal down through peak filing season, clients anxious about their own deadlines, and his own health suffering — high blood pressure and breathlessness, for which he had seen a doctor (para 8). The post, he said, was made impulsively under that stress, with no intention to insult or undermine anyone, and no personal benefit or publicity sought from it. He also argued that criticising government action is protected speech under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and that professional bodies had separately been making the same demand for an extension of the tax audit due date. He pointed to the same-day deletion as proof he had not meant the post to stand, and to a clean record with no prior disciplinary history. On all of this he asked the Board for a lenient view and a discharge. ## What the Board held The Board did not dispute that the language was out of line. It said so directly: the post "was inappropriate and did not reflect the level of care and professionalism expected from a Chartered Accountant" (para 11). What it declined to do was treat that alone as proof of misconduct. Three things moved it. First, the apology was complete, not partial — the respondent had accepted responsibility from the outset and made no attempt to shift blame (para 12). Second, the circumstances were real and not invented after the fact: the portal failure was "a matter of record," and the Board read the post as arising from that grievance rather than from any design to malign a constitutional authority — a reading it found supported by the fact that the post was "removed on the very same day" (para 13). Third, on free speech, the Board held that citizens, professionals included, may criticise government action, and that "every instance of harsh or ill-judged criticism cannot automatically be treated as professional misconduct" (para 14). It found no moral turpitude, no dishonesty and no abuse of professional standing — this was "an isolated incident committed in a moment of frustration" rather than a pattern (para 14). It was also the respondent's first such incident since joining the Institute, with no earlier disciplinary history on record (para 15). Disciplinary proceedings, the Board noted, are corrective as well as punitive, and it weighed a first lapse met with genuine remorse toward correction rather than punishment (para 15). None of that erased the conduct. The Board's finding carried its own qualifier: > while the Respondent ought to have exercised greater restraint and maintained the dignity expected > of a Chartered Accountant while expressing his views on a public platform... his conduct does not > amount to "Other Misconduct" (para 16) And it went further than a bare acquittal usually does. In the same paragraph that cleared him, it put an expectation on the record: > the Board expects the Respondent to exercise greater care, responsibility and professional > decorum in all future public communications, particularly while commenting on matters involving > constitutional authorities and public institutions (para 16) ## The order > the Respondent is 'Not Guilty' of Other Misconduct falling within the meaning of Item (2) of Part > IV of First Schedule (para 17) The Board ordered the case closed under Rule 15(2) — no reprimand, no fine, no punishment hearing to follow.[^rule152] But the acquittal came bolted to that on-record expectation of "greater care, responsibility and professional decorum" the next time he comments on a constitutional authority or public institution (para 16) — a line with no penalty attached to it, but a line all the same. ## Why it matters *This section is ours, not the Board's.* **An unconditional apology, offered before anyone asked for one, did more here than any legal argument.** The Board pointed first to the respondent's own words, that he was not defending even "0.01%" of the post (para 12). Concede plainly and early rather than mounting a contested defence. **Deleting the post the same day read as proof it was never meant to stand.** The Board treated same-day removal as showing he "did not persist with the impugned content" (para 13). Leave a post up for a news cycle and it will not read the same way. **A constitutional argument does not settle a professional one.** The Board affirmed a citizen's right to criticise government action (para 14) and still called the language inappropriate (para 11). Expect the two to be weighed separately. **An acquittal can arrive with an expectation attached.** The Board closed the file and, in the same breath, put on record how it expects him to speak about public institutions in future (para 16). If you post under your professional name, write as though the next post will be read against this one. This summarises a public order and links the primary source. It is general information, not legal or professional advice. [^parties]: *CA. Ashutosh Soni (M. No. 440153)*, Jaipur, Rajasthan, was the respondent, represented by *Adv. Sehban Naqvi*. The matter proceeded on information under file PPR/MISC/290/2025 rather than on a private complaint, so no complainant is named in the order. The post concerned the Union Finance Minister, referred to here only by office: she is a sitting public figure and the office plus the date identify her without repeating her name in a disciplinary write-up. [^item2p4]: Part IV of the First Schedule deals with "other misconduct." Item (2) covers conduct which, in the opinion of the Council or its Boards, brings disrepute to the profession — the catch-all clause for behaviour that has nothing to do with a member's professional work as such. [^rule152]: Rule 15(2) of the Chartered Accountants (Procedure of Investigations of Professional and Other Misconduct and Conduct of Cases) Rules, 2007 provides for closure of a case where the Board finds the member not guilty of the charge. [^coram]: CA. Babu Abraham Kallivayalil (Presiding Officer, in person), Dolly Chakrabarty, IAAS (Retd.) (Government Nominee, by video conference) and CA. Pankaj Shah (Member, in person). The matter was heard at ICAI Bhawan, Jaipur on 6 July 2026, with the respondent and his counsel appearing in person, and judgment was pronounced on 27 July 2026 — three weeks later, from a single hearing.