The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is waiting for the report of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) of the Union corporate affairs ministry for taking action against the auditor of the tainted Saradha Group. A top official of ICAI told TOI that it has already written to SFIO a couple of times for an early report in Saradha case so that it can start action. "The disciplinary committee of ICAI is working on Saradha issue," the official said.

SFIO has clearly pointed out alleged violation of some provisions of the Companies Act by S K Gupta Roy, the auditor-cum-audit firm of key Saradha outfits like Saradha Realty, Saradha Construction Company, Saradha Tours and Travels and Bengal Media. SFIO has specifically pointed out seven-eight such violations based on a report of Registrar of Companies (ROC) through which Saradha Group has allegedly siphoned off over Rs 150 crore, say sources.

Subodh Agarwal, who was till recently the president of ICAI, said the institute has given repeated reminders to SFIO in this regard. During Agarwal's tenure, SFIO started investigation into Saradha case from April 26, 2014.

Agarwal said that it usually takes a long time to execute penal action like disqualification of auditor. "First, we serve a notice if we find that the auditor is guilty. The auditor gets 21 days to answer. If the reply is not satisfactory, we proceed with penal action depending on the crime. But then the auditor has the right to go to court," he said. In Satyam case, it took three years to finally penalize the auditor. Gupta Roy told TOI on Tuesday that neither ICAI nor any investigation agency has contacted him in the recent past. "Nobody has asked for any clarification in last month," he maintained.

"We want to see the documents and papers related to the books of accounts of Saradha Group. We want to make a prima facie opinion whether there was any wrongdoing on the part of the auditors before we initiate action," an official said. SIT had appointed a Hyderabad-based firm for forensic audit of some Saradha Group firms but the original auditor was pretty much spared. This has surprised many in financial circles because in the Rs 7,000 crore Satyam fraud case, two top officials of the Bangalore unit of PwC were arrested along with Satyam officials for allegedly helping the company in suppression of facts.

Gupta Roy was the auditor of over 50 Saradha Group firms through which Sudipta Sen had raised money and siphoned that off from one company to another through a complex cobweb. Gupta Roy, a 70-year-old practicing chartered accountant with membership No. 015142, used to be auditors of the key firms of Sen since 2007 and till March 2012, when the last balance sheet of all these firms were submitted to Registrar of Companies (ROC).

When contacted by TOI earlier, Gupta Roy had blamed the Saradha owners for non-cooperation while preparing balance sheets of some key firms. He claimed that Saradha officials used to give very little time to audit the financials of over 50 group firms. However, Agarwal is not ready to accept the logic. "If an auditor thinks that the company is not cooperating then he should refuse to audit the accounts. One cannot compromise with the goodwill of ICAI," Agarwal added.

Arijit Chakraborty of Arijit Chakraborty and Associates, a practising chartered accountant, also feels that there are 43 audit standards and when somebody is auditing he should have clear idea of that. "There are clear guidelines about fraud and risk assessment and one should follow that," he added. CASANSAAR (Times of India)