ICAI issues notices to 11 more CA firms

Widening the scope of its enquiry regarding practices adopted by foreign auditing firms to operate in India through surrogate entities, ICAI has asked 11 more domestic chartered accountancy firms to furnish details of operational arrangement with them.

"We have issued notices to 11 more firms. We have asked them about their agreement with multinational entity, partnership deed, income tax assessment orders of the last three years and other things," Uttam Prakash Agarwal, president, ICAI said in statement.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) had last week sought similar details from 12 domestic auditing firms.

The decision assumes importance in the light of fraud in Satyam Computer, whose books of accounts were audited by Price Waterhouse, Indian arm of global auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Following disclosure of fraud by Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju, the institute constituted a seven-member committee headed by Agarwal to look into the role of auditors in the scam.