Vivek K. Tankha raises concerns over growing investigative agency intrusion into CAs’ work, cites threats to privacy and client confidentiality
Senior Congress leader Vivek K. Tankha on Thursday urged the Centre to enact legal safeguards for chartered accountants and take steps to curb the dominance of the “Big Four” audit firms, arguing that domestic CA firms require policy support to compete on a level playing field.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, the Madhya Pradesh MP said Deloitte, PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Ernst & Young and KPMG each handle mandates worth over Rs 10,000 crore, while nearly one lakh Indian CA firms rarely cross ₹10 crore in annual business.
“I am voicing the concern of nearly five lakh chartered accountants who live and work in this country, and over four lakh who are abroad. They are the gatekeepers of our businesses and the crisis managers of our operationalised government policies,” Tankha said.
Emphasising the profession’s role in major policy rollouts such as demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said while ministers make announcements, it is chartered accountants who implement policies on the ground. “There were so many forms, so much law and so many rules that a common man did not even know. It was the CAs who made it work,” he said.
