Fellows and Associates

(1) The members of the Institute shall be divided into two classes designated respectively as : 

• Associates and

• Fellows

(2) Any person shall, on his name being entered in the Register, be deemed to have become an associate member of the Institute and be entitled to use the letter A.C.A. after his name to indicate that he is an associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

(3) [A member, being an associate who has been in continuous practice in India for at least five years, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, or whether partly before and partly after the commencement of this Act, and a member who has been an associate for a continuous period of not less than five years and who possesses such qualifications as the Council may prescribe with a view to ensuring that he has experience equivalent to the experience normally acquired as a result of continuous practice for a period of five years as a chartered accountant shall, on payment of such fees as may be determined by notification by the Council which shall not exceed rupees five thousand and on application made and granted in the prescribed manner, be entered in the Register as a fellow of the Institute and shall be entitled to use the letters F.C.A. after his name to indicate that he is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants 

Provided that the Council may with the prior approval of the Central Government determine the fee exceeding rupees five thousand which shall not in any case exceed rupees ten thousand.]

I agree with facts mentioned by Sathish regarding ACA and FCA. You will note that FCA is senior in the profession than ACA. However, as regards signing the report by manager, it is a misconduct, since a manager is NOT a partner, though he may be FCA. It may happen that an ACA who is a partner can sign a report but not FCA who is not a partner though he may be senior to the ACA in profession.

Yes ...Only a partner of the practising firm or the propreitor of the practice firm has the right to do attestion function. Be it signing on audit report or authentication of final accounts, etc.

Articles, employees and all others can sign on the other routine correspondances with the clients. They can sign all other documents and papers execpt the above mentioned.

Only partners of the CA firm being ACA/FCA can sign the audit reports but a MANAGER (being an employee )cannot sign the same even if he is ACA/FCA..

Thank you all for your help! I didn't notice that he was MANAGER as an employee is automatically disqualified u/s 226. Thanks again!

Also in the answer they are saying other than the auditor who signs or authenticates the document be punishable with a fine...how auditor will be excluded from punishment?