The Hindu Business Line : Pandora's box in IP Marg

As if to create trouble in such a smooth story, she had a box that Zeus had given her with instructions that she not open it. Predictably, Pandora was seized with immense curiosity to know what this box contained.

The story doesn't inform if it was an auditor who gave her the curiosity.

One could be curious, however, as to why there is this story on accountancy page. In the context of current developments, the Department of Company Affairs (DCA) is Pandora and the bad box is in Indraprastha Marg. And the ICAI is crying, "Don't!"

To continue with the mythology, one day Pandora slipped off the cover and looked in.

"Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man, such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge for his mind, and scattered themselves far and wide," Thomas Bulfinch would write.

Nobody ever rebuilds a flyover however much one might despise the previous regime for having done all foul things in construction. Nor would anybody normally open up a sewed up wound to check if the doctor did his job right.

But when it comes to accounts and hurriedly buried bodies, exhuming is an option that is not ruled out. And in both cases, whoever dares has to be ready for the stink.

Will the DCA find exorbitant expenses on travel and entertainment booked by the ICAI office bearers?

Are there going to be slaughtered remains of accounting standards that were born not long ago in a different floor of the same building? Do they anticipate to find unauthorised transactions and unanswered queries stashed as skeletons in cupboards?

The worst-case scenario is all too known. Accounts are torn up, heads roll, `purity' is re-established, and the DCA is seen as the white knight in shining armour.

Now, after this exploit with a sitting duck, the Department can march confidently to discipline errant companies.

What about the optimistic outlook? Hope. That the accountants in the accounting body did their work okay, and that the ICAI would come through this fire-walk unharmed.

Was it not hope that remained inside Pandora's box after all the rest of the contents had escaped?

AccountSpeak@yahoo.co.uk

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