The first three Standards will be applicable to all kinds of audit engagements and the fourth one will specifically be applicable for the Secretarial Audit under section 204 of the Companies Act, 2013. In terms of ICSI’s own language, the Standards shall be mandatorily effective from the audit engagements accepted on or after 1st April, 2020.
ICSI has recently issued four Auditing Standards (‘Standards’) for the members in practice (Company Secretary) , namely, in order to enable them to carry out the audit engagements more effectively:
“Auditor” means a Company Secretary who is deemed to be in practice under sub-section (2) of Section 2 of the Company Secretaries Act, 1980 including a firm or Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) registered with ICSI undertaking the Audit.
| ♦ | CSAS -1 – Auditing Standard on Audit Engagement | |
| ♦ | CSAS -2 – Auditing Standard on Audit Process and Documentation | |
| ♦ | CSAS -3 – Auditing Standard on Forming of Opinion | |
| ♦ | CSAS -4 – Auditing Standard on Secretarial Audit |
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A Practising Company Secretary is authorised to undertake various audits prescribed under the Companies Act, 2013 SEBI regulations and other applicable laws, some of which are as under:
| ♦ | Secretarial Audit as per provisions of section 204 of the Companies Act 2013; | |
| ♦ | Half-yearly certificate certifying that all share certificates were issued by Share transfer Agent/Registrar and transfer Agent within 30 days of lodgement of transfer as provided under regulation 40(9) of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations; | |
| ♦ | Annual Secretarial Compliance Report as per SEBI Listing Regulations; | |
| ♦ | Half-yearly certification of maintenance of 100% asset cover for non-convertible debt securities as per regulation 56(d) of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations; | |
| ♦ | Certificate regarding compliance of conditions of corporate governance as per SEBI Listing Regulations; | |
| ♦ | Share Reconciliation Certificate as per SEBI (Depositories and Participants) Regulations, 2018, etc. |
These Standards shall be applicable to all these audits along with any other audit required to be done by PCS. Thus, for the purposes of these Standards, ‘Auditor’ shall mean a Practising Company Secretary undertaking any of such audits.