Letters to the editor dated April 19, 2021

The decision to prevent CA firms from retaining the audit mandate beyond five years is welcome. The CA institute needs to ensure that the outgoing CA firm does a comprehensive handover of its audit responsibilities to the incoming CA firm. Further, in order to avoid potential conflict of interest, the employees of the outgoing CA firm should be restrained from accepting employment or consulting opportunities with the client or with the incoming CA firm for a certain period of time.

Chennai

Apropos ‘We, the irresponsible people’ (April 19), the second wave has caught the country off-guard and the Centre has to admit that the situation is becoming scary and exacerbating by the day. Price gouging and profiteering have become rampant, with medicines, hospital beds, etc., becoming unaffordable for the common man. There are reports that testing is not being done diligently, as testing labs are overwhelmed and testing staff are untrained.

The Centre’s priority appears to be winning Assembly elections. It is no different from Nero playing the fiddle while Rome was burning.

Noida

This has reference to ‘Retailers, MSMEs, daily wagers hit hard by 2nd Covid wave’ (April 19). The virulence and intensity of the pandemic indicate that it is going to stay for a while, calling for a long-term strategy. The private sector should be made use of for creating temporary isolation centres and for vaccination. When private premises are given for patient care and isolation for the emergency use, such generous arrangements should be outside the purview of medico legal cases. The unorganised sector, migrant workers and small businesses will be the first to be hit and the government should roll out measures immediately to reduce the pain for them.

Insurance claims will increase on account of Covid and the government should come forward to re-insure a portion of Covid insurance claims.

Mumbai

This refers to ‘Co-working offices — the future of workplaces’ (April 19). The Covid-19 pandemic has led to the work from home (WFH) model becoming the new normal. During the pre-Covid period, employees in the IT sector had the privilege of WFH for some days in a month. WFH has resulted in reduction in the cost of workspaces, savings in electricity, lower expenses towards subsidised food and beverages, etc. Also, it has resulted in a sizeable reduction in road traffic, especially around IT offices.

However, the WFH concept is yet to catch on in sectors not having direct contact with customers like administrative units of banks and other central processing units. Wherever feasible, State government offices having no direct touch with the public can be shifted to WFH model.

Chennai

Apropos the editorial ‘Fixing mis-selling’ (April 19), the stiff fine imposed by SEBI on YES Bank and three of its officials is unexceptional. Though the bank may go on appeal before the appellate tribunal, its contention that the investors, being high net worth individuals, were assumed to have understood the risks is not borne out by the facts presented by the regulator. The bank’s intent is revealed in its neither sharing the term sheets with many investors, nor obtaining their confirmation for having understood the risks associated with the investment.

YES Bank allegedly sold the AT1 bonds as ‘super FDs fetching high interest’ to investors. Out of about ₹679 crore invested by individuals, majority were the bank’s existing customers contributing ₹663 crores, including some who prematurely closed their existing FDs with the bank and reinvested ₹80 crore in the said bonds. The bank finally wrote off its entire AT1 bonds worth ₹8,415 crore.

The RBI, ignoring turf sensibilities, needs to extend its full support to SEBI on the action taken, for it to be a deterrent to other banks.

Chennai

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