CA held guilty for certifying Form 15CB without verifying books of Accounts and supporting documents

The Disciplinary Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) in the matter of Shri v. Srivijaya, DDIT (Inv) Unit-Ill (3), Direct Tax Building, Visakhapatnam vs CA. Prasanta Kumar Roy Barman (M. No. 013905), Kolkata has held that CA. Prasanta Kumar Roy Barman is guilty of professional misconduct falling within the meaning of Clauses (7), (8) & (9) of Part I of the Second Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act 1949.

The allegation revealed against the Respondent is that he has issued 254 Certificates in Form 15CB without verifying books of account and supporting document which has been accepted by the Respondent in his statement recorded on oath u/s 131 o the Income Tax Act, 1961. The Respondent also certified in 20 cases that the source code of customized software was downloaded in his presence, however, no such customized software was ever downloaded in his presence as this fact can also be corroborated from statement on oath given under Section 132(4) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 during income tax search proceedings.

The Complainant in his submissions stated that during the course of enquries it was noted that substantial amounts from two bank accounts based in Visakhapatnam during the period 01.04.2015 to 31.03.2017 were transferred from India to countries like Hong Kong, China, and Singapore ostensibly in the guise of import of customized software.

On perusal of the documents on record, the Committee observed that the respondent has issued total of 254 certificates in Form 15 CB wherein he certified a total foreign remittance of Rs.398.17 crore, and no deduction of TDS was made from the amount remitted outside India.

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