“S/d-” is not a valid signature: CA beware amid Audit Filing Season

Audit season is finally here. During this rush hour, it has been seen that many CAs are using “S/d/-” on the Financial Statements, Audit Report and considering it signed. An important question here is, is “S/d” a Valid Signature?

As per SA 700, ICAI guidance note on Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements an Audit Report should contain, signature of the auditor, Auditor’s name, Membership number, Date of the report, Place of signing.

Section 143 also states that the statutory audit report must be signed by the CA conducting the audit, and must include their particulars.

As per Rule 8(e) of the Companies (The Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014, scanned image of documents shall be of original signed documents relevant to the e-forms or forms and the scanned document image shall not be left blank without bearing the actual signature of authorised person.

As per 2(56) of The General Clauses Act 1897 “sign”, with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions, shall, with reference to a person who is unable to write his name, include “mark”, with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions;

In the matter of Hari Chand K. Khanna v. CCE (2002) 150 ELT 1323, the validity of the order was challenged before the Honorable Tribunal. This case was brought before a larger bench, highlighting the importance of legal discourse.

In light of the above, members are advised to properly follow the legal discourse instead of mentioning Sd/- on the Financial Statements and Audit Report.

Proper legal discourse would involve that first financials are signed by the management, and then an audit report is generated based on your findings, and then the financials and audit report are signed by the auditor.