Anil Kumar, Practicing Company Secretary of ABC Ltd. while conducting the Secretarial Audit of the Company, has found that a fraud involving ₹ 2 crore has been committed against the company by one of its officers. The sa

Section 143(14) provides that the provisions of Section 143 shall mutatis mutandis apply to a Company Secretary in practice conducting Secretarial Audit under section 204 of the Companies Act, 2013. Section 143(12) read with rule 13 of the Companies (Audit and Auditors) Rules, 2014 as amended, provides that if an auditor of a company in the course of the performance of his duties as auditor, has reason to believe that an offence of fraud which involves or is expected to involve individually an amount of rupees one crore or 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. The auditor shall report the matter to the Central Government immediately but not later than 60 days of his knowledge after following the procedure as under:- the auditor to report the matter to the Board/ Audit Committee, as the case may be, immediately but not later than 2 days of his knowledge of the fraud, seeking their reply or observations within 45 days; on receipt of such reply, the auditor to forward his report and the reply of the Board/Audit Committee along with his comments to the Central Government within 15 days from the date of receipt of such reply or observations; in case the auditor fails to get any reply or observations from the Board/ Audit Committee within 45 days, he shall forward his report to the Central Government along with a note containing the details of his report that was earlier forwarded to the Board or the Audit Committee for which he has not received any reply or observations; the report shall be sent to the Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs in a sealed cover by Registered Post with Acknowledgement Due or by Speed Post followed by an e-mail in confirmation of the same; the report shall be on the letter head of the Auditor containing postal address, email address and contact telephone numbers or mobile numbers and be signed by the auditor with his seal and shall indicates his membership numbers; and the report shall be in the form of a statement as specified in Form ADT-4.