ICAI Disciplines CA for Threatening and Abusive Tweets Against Govt. Officials; Suspends for One-Month

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) Board of Discipline has taken disciplinary action against a Chartered Accountant (CA) named Vivek Kumar Singh of Kolkata.

The matter relates to certain tweets posted by CA Vivek Kumar Singh in March 2022 on his verified Twitter handle, @Vivek_Romee. These tweets are alleged to have offensive, disrespectful, and threatening statements against government officials of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) and the Income Tax Department. Through these tweets, he addressed government officials as “liars,” “Idiots” and “old Idiot IRS“ in his tweets. One of his tweets included the line reading, “The only option is to slap MCA officers.“ The accused CA made these tweets public and also tagged government officials (like @MCA21India and @FlnMlnindia) in them, explicitly harming the reputation and dignity of the Indian government.

During the proceedings, CA Vivek Kumar Singh asserted that he himself did not post these tweets; instead, they were posted by his staff members, who allegedly had access to his Twitter handle on their laptops. However, he could not furnish relevant evidence in support of his claim. Since the tweets pertained to his verified account, the disciplinary held him responsible for the offensive content posted on his account. The board also observed that he did not properly cooperate with the officials during the investigation, but rather sent unprofessional and threatening communications to the Disciplinary Directorate, including references to political connections.

The Board held that even if there was no intention to offend, a member is accountable for content posted from accounts held in their name. The use of offensive language and suggestion of violence were found to be clearly unbecoming of a chartered accountant and damaging to the image of the profession.

Considering the aforesaid findings, the ICAI Board of Discipline ruled CA Vivek Kumar Singh guilty of “Other Misconduct” under Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949. The Board has removed his name from the Register of Members for a period of one month as a disciplinary measure.