Reply of CA Rajkumar S. Adukia – Adukia-sation of ICAI - Where is our Profession headed?
Rajkumar Adukia
| Reply of CA Rajkumar S. Adukia – | |
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Adukia-sation of ICAI - Where is our Profession headed? |
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| December 6, 2012 | |
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Dear Professional Colleague, |
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| I am deeply hurt by the derogatory tone and
false contents of the mail put by CA Arun Anandagiri , a member from
Pune, qualified in 2004.As evident from his functioning, Mr. Arun
Anandagiri looks like a man who has been unable to accept defeat and has
still not come to terms with his losing the election in 2009. Instead of
moving on in life, he has taken the failure personally and has taken it
upon himself to launch a war against me just because I have outperformed
in the then election, as though with an underlying mission to somehow
malign me. Instead of doing something worthwhile for the ICAI himself, he is trying to malign others who are doing their bit for the profession. He seems to crave attention and constantly wants the limelight on him as he supposedly acts as a messiah of others. So while he sits in his office/home blogging on his blog ( Yes! He has actually created a blog with his first post being “This is my first post and just the beginning of a long battle to reform our ICAI 's functioning”) about what we have done wrong in our profession, I am out there dedicating my time and energy towards work. I don’t believe in mud-slinging and using character-assassination as launchpads for attaining fame and success which to my dismay I find he resorts to after I see him circulating derogatory mails about me consciously timed by him at opportune moments. He has created, posted, circulated, published and otherwise popularized on internet perverse, false, motivated, wild, malicious and baseless allegations against me. I firmly believe that this a willful attempt to malign my character and reputation before the scheduled election with ulterior motives and to lower the dignity of ICAI by a man of perverse mentality. In the light of the allegations leveled against me it became obligatory on my part to respond and clarify the allegations. And when I offer my explanation, I solely intend to keep up the stature of the CA profession than my individual achievements. Before I could proceed any further I would like to express that contesting for elections be it regional or central council means no power politics or spicing up one’s individual success with a position. Any candidate contesting for Central Council elections in western region is contesting for 1 out of 11 seats and not against any one. Contesting for elections and being elected, provides a channel through which the interest of the community as a whole can be represented and changes voted for, can be implemented, thereby upholding the rich legacy of our Institute. Being a council member requires great amount of dedication, sometimes even to the extent of giving up your personal commitments time and again. This is my 8th election (6th in central council including current one & 2 for regional council), while the rigorous schedules of being a Central Council Member has been quite tough, still the spirit to face challenges, providing innovative solutions to deal with professional upheavals and increasing the participation of professionals across the globe has played a major role in this participation. I as a professional am bound by the principles of honesty, integrity and ethical code of conduct and wish to set things straight with regard to the allegations raised. |
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| My explanation to various allegations is as under: | |
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I have been circulating knowledge materials on various subjects across the country ever since 1984.This has been my passion since early days and even before the thought of contesting for any elections. In those years these notes were cyclostyled because e platform was not available. I am a strong believer of the saying “Knowledge parted is Knowledge gained”. Calling it a “Freebie” for winning elections is derogating the intention and the purpose. The person who has not sent a single academic mail to our fellow members do not have moral ground to raise such question about my sharing knowledge with other fellow members. In fact I receive appreciation from the young and budding Chartered Accountants who enrich themselves from my study materials and books. I am encouraged from the appreciations which I receive because of my ability to write, learn and share knowledge with others. The books written and circulated by me are all within the boundaries of code of conduct and there is no historical or current violation. In 2001, a losing candidate had also made a similar complaint but as decided by the judiciary it is not in violation. It seems Mr. Giri needs to enhance his technical skills and substantiate his pleadings well before making a complaint to ICAI. |
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The Committee for Members in Industry (CMII) was set up to bring together all members in the industry and to assure our industry members that ICAI will stand by them for all their requirements as a member and ensure their interest is protected. They are indeed a great resource of knowledge given their wide spread experience and understanding in industry. The members of the industry are generally not aware about the activities of the Institute, so collectively a decision was taken by the Council and committee consisting of 33 members to work as a facilitator/bridge between the industry and members and hence thereby the awareness programs were started. The practice of conducting interactive meets for Members in Industry followed by dinner was started way back in 2004 to involve Members in Industry in the activities of the Institute. The person who himself was part of such programs cannot label false and malicious allegations against me. Allegation of record number of free dinner meets this year is baseless. CMII organizes interactive meet with members in industry as per the need. In few years it was upto nine. In current year, across the country twelve meets were organized, only four meets were organized in western region which consists of one third membership of country with 66,000 members. The expenditure on the 4 meets organized this year in western region namely Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Baroda is Rs. 8.22 lacs. I do not know from what source he got alleged figure of Rs. 1 crore and more. I am being blamed that I am benefitted by such programs by a person who has miserably lost in the last election contested by him. He has contested as soon as he became eligible after completing 5 years membership, without working for the profession either in branch or the region. He had enough time to raise his grievances against the fellow members but did not write simply because of the reason that his sole motive is to defame me and lower the dignity of the Institute. It seems and as I have also been told that he is a frustrated and failed individual and he is writing such mails with ulterior motive to give benefit to his nominee candidate who is my competitor. He is an ex-editor and a famous blogger to defame ICAI and its work Needless to say but the meet of members in industry has not been held since last 3 months so there is no question of campaigning. I am the person who would never in my worst dreams even think of organizing ANY FREE DINNER. He is circulating such false and malicious mails against me just before the elections. |
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| Mr. Arun has relied on an anonymous letter titled above. I have had a personal conversation with the Past President CA V B Haribhakti and he has very clearly stated that he did not see the anonymity in the letter and the communication made by him was private to the secretary of the Institute. From which source he has obtained the communication is known only to his devil mind. Mr. Arun has deliberately used a paragraph from the email without understanding the substance of the matter. | |
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I would like to insist here that when an individual in a
responsible position, happens to take leave from his important official
commitment for a reason that is truly personal in nature - “Family
Emergencies”, it should be respected. Creating a mockery out of it
is definitely not acceptable to me. The perverse and distorted
mentality of this gentleman can be inferred from the fact that he wanted
to know about my personal difficulty which he wanted to share with all
respected fellow members; no respectable human being would share his
family problems at public platform. With all humanity, I say that I have
always kept the interest of the Institute at the utmost priority. |
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The Nagpur Land matter was never on agenda or
additional agenda during the said council meeting. I am one of
the most vocal persons in council and committee meetings to raise various
issues and deliberate on it. I am told by my council colleagues that
unscheduled Nagpur land matter was discussed around 4pm which was taken
much after I left the meeting. I was in the meeting for more than 3 hours
and participated very effectively. Linking the time of my leaving
the meeting and starting of the discussion on Nagpur land matter is an
illdesign of Mr. Giri. |
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| NAGPUR LAND ISSUE : | |
| Not being part of the Building Committee, I was not aware of the deal details and the matter did not even come up for discussion or approval among the Central Council Members. | |
| The moment I came to know about the deal from press reports and mails, I was the first person to request the President of our Institute to provide the details of the Land Deal Agreement. I am the one who has asked for the copy of agreement and minutes of the finance committee where the matter was approved so that facts can be studied. | |
| I had recommended setting up of a “Regional Infrastructure Development Committee” one in each of the 5 regions, consisting of council members from respective regions, regional chairman and secretary to review the decisions pertaining to the infrastructure of ICAI. This has been a long time suggestion and request insisted by me to ensure all CC members from that region are aware of the happenings on infrastructure development at ICAI. However, this was not given any weight-age. | |
| Matter on Nagpur land needs full examination and understanding by council members and specific committee before any conclusion be derived. Hence, I cannot comment if it is a scam or not. | |
| I have put a request to secretary and president
of ICAI for a special council meeting at Nagpur to look at the facts in
view of countrywide allegations on Nagpur land deal. |
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In a democratic set up there are certain ways by which
grievances of an individual can be redressed. If Mr. Giri had any query
or grievance he could have written a mail to me or to the other council
members or could have telephoned me, but he did not chose to adopt the
civilized way of raising an issue democratically rather indulged in
heckling. Sorry! But, tea breaks are no time to address serious issues. Inspite of having all my contact details he chose to intervene my meeting with other members. I was available at the branch premises during the conference yet no painstaking efforts have been taken by any of them to come and discuss the matter then. I am open to answer any member of the
Institute when it comes to addressing issues that could possibly
malign the credibility of our Institute, at the same time I feel let down
when people attend meetings and conferences only to gain
publicity, campaign for nominated candidate and create
the so called “heckling” disturbing others. |
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Technical knowledge of each person differs depending on their interest. I reproduce the comment of Mr Giri on technical knowledge of council members. “We have a President in Jaydeep Shah who, no one recollects as to when was the last time he spoke on a technical topic. My great friend and inspiration M.R. Venkatesh asked a valid question - How many Council members are even aware of the exact no. of accounting standards pronounced by ICAI? Make no mistake - Rajkumar Adukia, Jaydeep Shah and Co. represent everything that is wrong with our profession and the Council.....” I qualified as a CA in May 1983 exam
getting 1st rank in inter CA, G. P. Kapadia award for
best student and 6th rank in Final CA .I am
lifetime student as suggested by late Nani Palkhiwala. This
year I am pursuing Diploma in Criminology from Mumbai university,
a course on environment audit from IGONOU and about to complete my Phd on
the topic of “corporate governance in Mutual
fund” Maximum technical presentations are made by council members. Bracketing me with CA Jaydeep Shah is unwarranted. Giri writes “15 years ago when Adukia first entered the Council, he was an exception. Today every second Council member is an Adukia or even worse. “ I am a true believer of hard work. With all humbleness at my command, I would like to state that my work speaks for itself. |
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During last 15 years followings have been done at various committees at ICAI |
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| In each committee for last 15 years, more than 5 documents have been published | |
| Attendance of more than 95% with active deliberations and suggestions in each committee, whatever be subject matter, be it public finance, ifrs, indirect taxes etc. | |
| Specialized professional courses introduced on Arbitration, Concurrent audit, internal audit and many other subjects. | |
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Corporate laws committee to Corporate & allied laws
committee |
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Committee on Economic & Commercial Laws |
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| Represented to 60+ regulators as a Chairman of Professional Development committee in one single year apart from regular representations each year to avail services of a Chartered Accountant | |
| Awareness about Carbon credits, IFRS, Sustainability reporting etc as a service provided by the members of ICAI | |
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My contribution to regional council |
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My ballot no is 1, very synonymous to my intentions of
wanting to be the first in bringing about reforms of its kind in
the performance of our Institute, for greater benefits of the
members, students and society on the whole. It is not the question of Adukia-sation of ICAI or
Giri-sation? Instead, election is the time voter’s should exercise
their right to choose the right leader to head ICAI. |
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| Regards CA Rajkumar S. Adukia 09820061049 / 09323061049 |
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