The Centre has given approval to the CA Institute to conduct e-hearings for the disciplinary proceedings initiated against its erring members.

This is expected to allow the institute to hear disciplinary cases through video conference facility, obviating the need for the members against whom disciplinary cases have been initiated to travel to either Delhi or Mumbai to physically present themselves before the institute’s Disciplinary Committee.

Reacting to this development, Naveen Gupta, President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), said the CA Institute had in May formally approached the Corporate Affairs Ministry for its green signal on the e-hearing proposal.

The Central Council had given its assent and then an application was proactively made with the Government, he said.

“Now that the Government has approved, we plan to start e-hearing from January. We are confident that the backlog of cases will be cleared in two years,” Gupta told BusinessLine .

Gupta made it clear that no pendency existed as far as old disciplinary committee (old framework-prior to 2007) cases were concerned. Even in the case of Government/ regulatory cases, only 417 cases are pending and these will get cleared in the next one year, he said.

Gupta also said the CA Institute was not a self-regulatory organisation as being made out in certain quarters and needed Government approval in several areas to go about its work.

“We were proactive in seeking Government approval for e-hearing. Had this approval come earlier, we would have made more progress on this front and cleared the backlog by now,” Gupta said.

In the first phase, e-hearing will start from five regional headquarters — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Kanpur — Gupta added.

Based on the experience gathered, the video-conference facility will be extended to other cities, he said.

Faster disposal of cases

Ashok Haldia, former Secretary of CA Institute, said: “enabling appearance through video conferencing was long due as this would facilitate faster and ease in disposal of cases”.

It may be recalled that the CA Institute — to expedite disposal of Government cases — had set up additional dedicated disciplinary Benches and even sought appointment of additional Government nominees to these Benches.

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