The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has held that ISKCON, Mumbai, misused and misinterpreted the audit reports of ISKCON Bangalore to further their case in the ongoing legal dispute between ISKCON, Bangalore, and ISKCON, Mumbai, said Bangalore ISKCON president Madhu Pandit Das on Tuesday.
Das told reporters that the ICAI Council, which is the highest governing body, set aside an earlier order of the ICAI disciplinary committee that held chartered accountant V L Varadarajan guilty of professional misconduct and dismissed the complaint lodged by ISKCON, Mumbai. The disciplinary committee also charged that Varadarajan issued an ante-dated audit report and balance sheet to ISKCON, Bangalore Society and referred the matter to ICAI Council.
Das said ISKCON, Mumbai had presented forged audit papers while obtaining the disciplinary committee’s orders. ISKCON, Mumbai submitted only 10 sheets of audit paper to the lower court during the trial of the case and filed a claim of ownership of the temple on Hare Krishna Hill in Rajajinagar. Das said ISKCON Bangalore was not mentioned as a branch in any of the sheets, except in two sheets and even that was rubbished as forged by ISKCON, Bangalore’s lawyer.
In fact, ISKCON, Bangalore is mentioned as a separate society in the audit report. The same set of documents were submitted to the High Court when ISKCON Mumbai appealed against the lower court’s order. However, an eleventh sheet was presented before the ICAI, in which Varadarajan’s sign was prominent, to claim that Varadarajan was handling ISKCON, Mumbai accounts too.
He claimed that Varadarajan has not handled ISKCON’s Mumbai accounts and
that they were handled by another auditor. Dayaram Das and Varada Krishna Das of ISKCON, Mumbai presented the same set of forged documents to the media when they held a press conference accusing ISKCON, Bangalore and Varadarajan of issuing ante-dated audit report and balance sheet to ISKCON Bangalore Society.
“We have filed a police complaint against Dayaram Das and Varada Krishna Das for misleading people by presenting falsified documents. Varada Krishna Das obtained an anticipatory bail, while Dayaram Das is absconding. As they presented the same set of forged documents to the Supreme Court, we initiated contempt of court proceeding against ISKCON, Mumbai”, Das said.
He added that records related to granting Hare Krishna Hill in Rajajinagar to ISKCON Bangalore were not missing with the Bangalore Development Authority as alleged by a few. “But, only a few pages from the hundreds of pages in the records are missing. ISKCON Bangalore is mentioned as an independent society in those records and also bears the Karnataka registration number of ISKCON Bangalore,” he said.