ICAI Reprimands CA for Withholding Filing of Tax Forms Over Unpaid Audit and ITR Fees

The complainant, Shri Colonel S.K. Singh, registered a case against CA Chandni Gupta (respondent). The respondent was appointed as a chartered accountant for the audit of M/s Centre for Land Warfare Studies, where the complainant was a deputy director.

As per the complaint, the audit report for the AY 2019-20 in Form 10B was not uploaded on the income tax portal on time despite repeated reminders. Further, it was alleged the ITR filed by the respondent firm was declared invalid by the income tax department, which claimed that the e-acknowledgement no. of the ITR was edited and unauthenticated. Due to these actions of the respondent, the society had to face income tax demands.

The respondent, CA Chandni Gupta, accepted that Form 10B was not filed on time. She said that she did not upload the form on time, as the complainant firm had not paid her audit fees of Rs 24,000 and ITR filing fees of Rs 2,500 even though she repeatedly reminded the society. She said that due to non-payment, she withheld the filing of Form 10B.

However, the ICAI Disciplinary Committee of the ICAI said that this conduct of the respondent was unprofessional. The committee observed that the respondent had failed to perform her professional obligations.

The committee noted that filing Form 10B was a contractual obligation of the respondent. It said that she cannot put such a non-filing condition unless it is mentioned in the contract.

The committee held the CA, Chandni Gupta GUILTY of professional and other misconduct under Item (7) of Part I of the Second Schedule and Item (2) of Part IV of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949. Accordingly, the committee reprimanded CA Chandni Gupta and levied a fine of Rs 10,000.