Students who have passed their CA final exams and not taken membership of the CA Institute for three years or more from the date of passing the exams better watch out.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) proposes to mandate such students to take and pass an “Assessment” if they desire to take membership of the CA Institute after such three-year period.

A similar routine of an “Assessment” (most likely refresher course) will be mandated even for those ex-members who want to restore their name after a period of three years or more from the date of the removal of their names due to non payment of membership fees or any other reason, Atul Kumar Gupta, President, ICAI, told BusinessLine .

There are as many as 19,000 students who have not taken ICAI membership even after qualifying in CA final exam, he said. This is because most of them are working in various companies and claiming themselves to be chartered accountants.

Tightening the rules

“As per our Act, unless and until you take membership, you cannot write FCA or CA before your name. You are only a final passed student,” Gupta said.

Likewise if somebody’s name has been removed for non-payment of fees for three consecutive years and above, then he has to go in for refresher course (Assessment) if he wants to get certificate of practice and claim membership.

“We have to see whether member who is coming back is getting himself updated or not. Somebody who is looking to take up audit profession after a long gap, we need to assess if they are well versed with recent changes in accounting standards. How it will be assessed...It’s being discussed and deliberated. We decided internally that it will be a refresher course. Modalities will be decided by the central council and then government approval will be sought,” he said.

For now, the ICAI has come out with a draft regulation (that has received the Centre’s in-principle approval) which has been put up for public comments for 45 days, Gupta said.

Gupta said there are over 60,000 members whose names have been struck off for non-payment of fees.

Industrial training

Meanwhile, ICAI is also proposing to tweak the period of industrial training that an articled assistant can opt for during his three-year articleship.

“We are increasing the period of industrial training. Earlier the maximum period for industrial training was 12 months. Now it is proposed to permit from 6 months to 18 months. Earlier it was 9-12 months. So one can go in for short term industrial training of even 6 months as well,” Gupta said.

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