You are appointed by Crook Limited to conduct Secretarial Audit for the year ended March, 2019. During the course of the audit, you encounter certain transactions that make you believe that an offence of fraud involving

Section 143 of the Companies Act, 2013 read with Rule 13 of the Companies (Audit and Auditors) Rules, 2014 provides that where an auditor in the course of an audit of a company has reason to believe that an offence of fraud, which involves or is expected to involve, individually an amount of ₹ 1 crore and above, is being or has been committed against the company by its officers or employees, the auditor shall report the matter to the Central Government in the following steps- (i) The auditor shall report the matter to the Board or the Audit Committee, as the case may be, immediately but not later than two days of his knowledge of fraud, seeking their reply or observations within 45 days. (ii) On receipt of such reply or observations, the auditor shall forward his report along with reply from the Board or the Audit Committee to the Central Government within 15 days from the date of receipt of such reply or observations. (iii) In case, he fails to get any reply or observations as above, he shall forward his report to the Central Government along with a note containing details of his report that was forwarded to the Board or the Audit Committee. The report to Central Government shall be in the form of a statement as specified in e-form ADT-4. As per Section 143(14)(b) of the Act, the above referred provisions of Section 143 apply mutatis mutandis to the cost audit conducted by a secretarial audit conducted by a company secretary.