ERRANT ACCOUNTANTS HELP CHINESE MILITARY SET UP SHELL FIRMS IN INDIA

The total number of accountants and secretaries who have been identified as bypassing rules to help the Chinese set up shell companies is 400.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

'ANTI-NATIONAL ACTS'

The lure of substantial amounts of easy money on offer may be proving too much for a section of Company Accountants (CAs) and Company Secretaries (CSs), who, despite repeated warnings by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), are helping Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) controlled companies incorporate shell companies in India.

These shell companies, after being incorporated, are being used by the PLA to indulge in theft of data and intellectual property, thus negatively impacting the Indian economy, which is trying to break its dependence on Chinese companies, unsuccessfully, for years now. While the "big" established Chinese companies use the services of established accounting bodies to do business in India, these PLA-backed individuals, who set up these shell companies, reach out to individual CAs and CSs.