The disciplinary Committee of the institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) has imposed penalty on a Company secretary for committing professional misconduct by making mistakes in the Compliance Certificate issued by him for a Company. The respondent, a Company Secretary, is a member of the ICSI. A complaint was lodged in the year 2014 alleging that the respondent, in a Compliance Certificate issued by him for a Company wrongly indicated that
_(i) the company has not issued any equity shares in the relevant year_
_(ii) wrong statement on the conducting of meeting of the Board of Directors_
_(iii) wrongly stated that the Provident Fund is applicable to the company._
The respondent denied all the allegations. After the enquiry, the Director of Discipline observed that the Form 23AC has been filed by the company for filing the balance sheet and other documents with the Registrar of Companies through Chartered Accountant Ms. Shruti Prafulchandra Shah (membership No 101499) showing increase of Share Capital However, the fact of increase of share capital is not reflected in the Compliance Certificate It was observed that the Respondent has stated that the Board of Directors has duly met 4 times during the period under review but it appears that the Board was not constituted as two directors had resigned for which the Respondent has stated that they had written to the ROC, but failed With regard to the applicability of PF scheme, it was observed that the respondent merely relied on the information provided by the Company instead of the relevant documents. After considering the rival submissions, the disciplinary Committee found that the respondent is guilty of Professional Misconduct and imposed a fine of Rs. 15,000/-, on failure of remitting the same within the stipulated time, the respondent will be removed from the register for 60 days