Auditing The Auditors

Are auditors the only ones responsible for reporting corporate fraud? While regulators expect them to take a more active role and more measures are in the offing, where does the buck stop?

- SURABHI AND BINU PAUL

“The auditors fluttered anxiously. And, as always happens in their species, when something goes radically wrong and needs fixing instantly, they settled down to try to work out who was to blame.”

These lines from Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, published 27 years ago, may well capture some of the tumult witnessed in India’s auditing profession in recent times. Except it is a double blame game these days, with audited firms hitting back at accountants exiting their mandates.

Statutory auditors, responsible for certifying a company’s financial health, usually carry out their work, including asking inconvenient questions to corporate managements, with a high level of discretion. But the gloves seem to be off now, as they strive to avoid regulatory strictures of the kind the erstwhile auditors of the imploded infrastructure lender IL&FS have been hit with.

Consider these developments: In June, Deloitte, the auditor of Byju’s, resigned noting that there was a “significant impact” on its ability to perform the audit according to necessary standards and that it has “not received any communication on the resolution of the audit report modifications” for 2021-22.

Then in August, One97 Communications, fintech giant Paytm’s parent, informed stock exchanges that Price Waterhouse Chartered Accountants had resigned as the statutory auditor of its subsidiary Paytm Payments Services due to a change in the auditor of the holding company. Price Waterhouse Chartered Accountants has “not raised any concern or issue”, it asserted.