‘Man Arrested For Bribery In Surat Is Not CA’: Chartered Accountancy Body ICAI Rubbishes Fake News

The ICAI has clarified that Manish Pachhigar, the person caught accepting bribe along with the assistant charity commissioner in Surat is not a chartered accountant registered with ICAI, contrary to his claim.

The President of Surat branch of WIRC-ICAI, Mihir Thakkar was quoted as saying, “Pachhigar does not have a CA degree and he falsely represented himself as a CA. Even the police did not check credentials of the arrested person, which has caused irreparable damage to the CA community. There are over 3,000 chartered accountants registered with ICAI and only 800 are the practising CAs.”

On Tuesday, Anti-corruption bureau officials caught an assistant charity commissioner and a ‘chartered accountant’ when they were taking a bribe of Rs 75,000 to approve changes in the names of working committee members and trustees of a registered trust.

The CAs affiliated with ICAI have asked the public, trade and industry, not to utilise services of persons impersonating as CA who are not members of the ICAI. “We have also suggested to take strong action against non-members representing themselves as CAs and sought the amendment of Section 24 of the Chartered Accountant Act, 1949, by imposing exemplary penalty for falsely claiming to be a member and using the CA logo” said Thakkar.