New Delhi, April 5 : The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed The Chartered Accountants, the Cost and Works Accountants and the Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2022. The Bill was already cleared by the Lok Sabha on March 30. The Bill amends the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949, the Cost and Works Accountants Act, 1959, and the Company Secretaries Act, 1980 so as to deal with the cases of misconduct in three professional institutes- the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the Institute of Cost Accountants of India and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. The Bill changes the disciplinary mechanism under the three Acts and specifies timelines for disciplinary proceedings. It also provides more external representation on the Board of Discipline and Disciplinary Committee. Replying to the debate in the House, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said there will not be any change on the autonomy of these bodies after the amendment. “The government brought this Bill after the recommendation of the Meenakshi Datta Ghosh Committee formed in 2017 and these recommendations were studied by the Ministry and in the era of self-regulation model came into question, the global best practices are saying that this model cannot actually meet the expectation of the professional bodies and therefore, the Committee has given a lot of inputs on how to make these institutions more robust,” Sitharaman said. The Bill creates a Coordination Committee headed by the Secretary of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The Committee will have representation from the three Institutes formed under the Acts. The Secretary to each Council will be designated as chief executive with the President as the head of the Council. The President will be responsible for ensuring implementation of decisions of the Council. ASU RJ