Arjun
(A) — (chanting bhajan) Ram Krishna Hari ! Ram Krishna Hari ! (opens his
eyes and looks around in despair)
A — O
Lord ! Where are you? Please save me ! Please save me ! Ram Krishna Hari !
Shrikrishna
(S) — (appears with a smiling face) Re Arjun, you are chanting my bhajan
today. Anything special?
A — What else can we do?
S — Why? You said, in July you don’t have time even to
think about me. I avoided meeting you in July. You remembered me. So I had to
come.
A —This time there is a penalty for late filing of tax
returns. But clients did not turn up with data. They take it casually.
S — Yes. All of them must have flocked in during last
week of July.
A — Yes. As if each one of them is our only client !
S — But this is your annual ritual to keep crying !
Nothing new about it. I think, you are afraid of something else.
A — You are right ! Truly, you are ‘antargyani’.
You can read our minds. Many of my friends wanted to fall on your feet. They
want to surrender before you !
S — Surrender what? Certificate of practice?
A — May be, you can’t rule it out !
S — How can you run away from your profession? It’s your
mission !
A — But this mission has become ‘bheeshan’ –
horrifying !
S — What happened? Some new draconian law has come?
A — No Lord ! Same law; but new approach. Full of
prejudice and negativity.
Really, don’t understand what to do. ‘To practice or not
to practice’ —— that is the question.
S — Oh ! you are talking like Hamlet. But why this
dilemma after so many years? I remember, you were in a similar dilemma before
Mahabharata War.
A — Absolutely true. The regulation is so much that we
cannot cope up with it.
S — If you are a small practitioner, all this will always
keep on frightening you. Grow Big, Arjun, you must think Big !
A — Bhagwan, I am talking about ‘Big’ CAs only.
Many of the big CA firms have left the audit assignments of big corporates which
they were doing for number of years !
S — Surprising ! What made them do so?
A — Fear ! Every CA is now finding the profession very
risky. Whatever you do, there is some flaw or the other. And now it is becoming
fatal.
S — But why such sudden change?
A — It is change of attitude of Government. Change of
approach of regulators. All these years, we were watchdogs, but now they want
us to be blood-hounds.
S — So, all of you need to be ‘Duryodhana’ and not
‘Yudhishthira’. You need to be always suspicious; smelling some foul.
A — You said it ! We can’t afford to remain as mere
auditors; but need to act as investigators. Businessmen – our clients – are
never hundred percent honest. They cannot survive with honesty. Government
forces them to be dishonest.
S — And they pay you fees to audit their accounts ! And
Government wants you to be ‘independent’ ! Interesting !
A — And real problem is that the businessmen will never
mend their ways. They have to commit irregularities. So all those
irregularities, these auditors have tolerated for years ! Now, it is difficult
to continue the audits knowing the irregularities. At the same time, you cannot
discontinue by stating this reason ! Then you are fully exposed ! Very
difficult situation. Catch 22 !
S — So you need to be more diligent; more organised; more
pro-active; and more bold.
A—But if we start doing the audit in this ‘ideal’
fashion, we will land up completing only one year’s audit over a period of 2 to
3 years ! !
S — I think, we need to discuss it more; but not now. I
am busy in regulating the monsoon, it has started behaving strangely !
A — The ship of our profession is in the troubled waters.
YOU ALONE can steer it through!
NOTE: The above
dialogue is describing the current scenario and the dilemma faced by audit
profession.
