Whether secretarial auditor has to verify list of related parties disclosed in financial statements or he can simply rely on the list verified by the statutory auditors?
Here is a case where in :
The company did not disclose one company as related party in financial statements for 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. ROC issued show cause notice to PCS. PCS took the plea that he has relied on the report of statutory auditors and hence non-compliance was not reported. However, ROC did not agree and levied maximum penalty @ Rs.50,000 per year on the PCS vide order dated 28.42023:
The copy of order is as under :
