In the wake of a chartered accountancy student’s arrest last week for allegedly forging documents using a CA’s stamps and seals, the Pune branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), now suspects the accused may have misused stamps and seals of more chartered accountants in the city.
Shahajahan Khurshid Khan allegedly made duplicates of stamps and seals of CA Sunil Shankar Yelol with Yelol’s ICAI membership number for tax audit of M/S Jagtap Automobilesand duped Yelol of Rs 9.80 lakh.
The incident came to light when Jagtap Automobiles decided to hand over their audit work to another CA, Vijay Anpat. Following the CA protocol, Anpat called up Yelol to obtain his no-objection certificate about the handover. Yelol realised that Jagtap was not his client, but the stamps and seals carried his membership number.
According to the ICAI legal advisor, advocate VB Khatri, Khan may have used the stamps and seals for people who had applied for bank loans to get TDS refunds and so on.