CA Amendment Act: Know which provisions of the Amendment Act have come into effect

The Centre has implemented the majority of the provisions of the Chartered Accountants Amendment, Cost and Works Accountants, and Company Secretaries (Amendment) Act, 2022, in just over a month following its approval by Parliament.

The Act, among other things, attempted to reform the disciplinary mechanisms of three professional bodies: chartered accountants, company secretaries, and cost accountant institutions. The major goal of this law is to make the running of institutes more transparent, particularly in disciplinary matters, and to improve the quality of the disciplinary process.

CA, CMA & CS (Amendment) Act 2022 receives assent of the President [Read Notification]

Key Changes

According to reports, the Corporate Affairs Ministry has now issued an executive order bringing the majority of the amending Act’s provisions into effect on May 10. The important clauses that brought about modifications to the disciplinary procedure in the three institutes, however, are not covered by the most recent move, they stressed.

After the Act is passed by Parliament, a non-member will become the presiding officer of the disciplinary committee in these institutes. However, the institutes might take heart in the fact that the government will only pick the official from the names proposed by their respective Central Councils.

As part of the disciplinary committee’s makeover, the law changed its composition to include a 2+3 formula (two institute nominees and three non-institute members) rather than the previous 3+2 formula (three institute members and two government nominees).

Prior to the law’s implementation, the CA Institute stated that the disciplinary committee redesign proposed in the Bill was not the greatest conclusion for it, and thus wrote to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs requesting a reconsideration of the provision.

The ICAI had preferred that the previous 3+2 formula be maintained. It had also proposed that the presiding officer be a member of the institute and a chartered accountant in order for the disciplinary mechanism to function properly. However, the centre did not accept these points of view.