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Complaint against a CA

ASHOK KUMAR (Partner) (28 Points)

15 May 2020

Sir,

I had to pay a penalty for not filing the ITR and the IT as my CA kept postponing the work.Can any action be taken on him by the the Association of CA for deficency of duty.

Thanks

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7 Replies

Asha Kanta Sharma (Manager - Finance & Accounts) (19186 Points)
Replied 16 May 2020

If you can amicably resolve the matter with CA it will be a good step. However no CA would want to have a complaint filed against them which will impact Reputation and Goodwill. If you have any formal acceptance records with you, you can take up the matter further. Please see the below : https://www.icai.org/post.H T M L?post_id=5729 https://resource.cdn.icai.org/18628form_i_rule.pdf https://blog.ipleaders.in/professional-misconduct-by-chartered-accountants/

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Asha Kanta Sharma (Manager - Finance & Accounts) (19186 Points)
Replied 16 May 2020

Important Points -

Complaint once filed can be withdrawn only if permitted by the Disciplinary Directorate.
If you file a fake complaint, you can land in problems.
Kindly document all evidences before you file any such complaint. Without evidences, no action can be taken, since this committee is a quasi judicial committee which has the powers similar to the Court Judges.
After the final decision is made by the committee, you can file an appeal within 90 days to the Appellate Authority.
Make sure that all documents and information are retrieved from such consultant. If any passwords were shared kindly change them immediately.
Think twice before filing any complaint, it will take a lot of time before decision is made.
Besides, it might sometimes backfire, if you or your company were also equally responsible for this situation, especially because this case involves paying bribery.

Anupam Chatterjee (2 Points)
Replied 27 April 2021

I need your valuable suggestions before deciding upon the options available to me. So, please respond.

I have an LLP company in Hooghly, a CA firm was responsible for taking care of all our compliances. We hired a firm to ensure that our backs were covered because we are a team of technical individuals with hardly any knowledge of compliances. Well, that is why we hire such firms in the first place, isn't it?

For the last 3 years, we were always paying late fees, etc because the information would be provided to us by this partner firm only after the due dates. But, we always accommodated their excuses and maintained amicable terms. Last year, they raised us an invoice for their services until 2018 - 2019 and we were unable to pay the full invoice because of the sudden COVID situation. Our clientele had suddenly disappeared, the company had no business and there was an acute shortfall of funds. We kept requesting our CA firm to ensure that we did not have any more penalties as that would further put a dent on our finances. The CA firm kept turning down our request and denied to even communicate further until all their dues were cleared. They had registered everywhere using their own email id's and phone numbers, so logging into the ITR portal was also not possible.

Finally, we cleared their dues in March this year. They re-initiated communication and on the first instance informed us that our company had already incurred a late fees of INR 65,000 + for ITR, ROC and KYC filings of 2019 - 2020. When asked how they could just stand by and watch us getting fined on a daily basis and never bothering to even send us a tip of what was to come, they simply responded that it was not their responsibility to do so.

We ended up paying them almost a lakh in terms of late fees, their service fees, etc. Thereafter, they sent us a new invoice with the service fees for 2019 - 2020 which now included a "last minute emergency service fees" of INR 5,000/- on top of the usual bill. When we asked them to send us the challans and receipts against the filings for the purpose of internal accounting, they clearly denied and sent us an email that we need to first clear their latest invoice, then someone needs to go to their office with an authorization letter signed duly by all the designated partners to collect the required documents.

It would be anyone's guess that we do not want to work with this firm anymore. But, we also want to send firms like these a strong message that this was gross negligence of duties on their part, for which my company had to pay heavily. On top, the challans and receipts are properties of our company as they are issued in its name.

Please tell me the corrective and recoursive action we can take here in this matter.

Looking forward to your feedback and suggestions.

Best regards,
Anupam Chatterjee

YASHODHRA PATIL (2 Points)
Replied 09 May 2023

Hi sir

I am also facing a similar issue. Plz share your no or call me on

Saadhvi Interiors (2 Points)
Replied 29 February 2024

Even I am facing the problem regarding the CA resignation and he can send a letter of resignation but can't help me with digital signature with ADT-3 as my company is an pvt ltd company

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Yasaswi Gomes new (Finance ) (4492 Points)
Replied 01 March 2024

That is why, its all unsophisticated. Lots of accounting frauds still happening in India due to lack of procedures by MCA. I want to become the minister of MCA instead miscreant north indians and threaten entire India to follow my back. That means complete procedures.