Dheer & Co., a sole proprietary Chartered Accountancy firm in practice with an office in a busy belt of a city, had great difficulty in…

As per section 27 of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 if a chartered accountant in practice has more than one office in India, each one of these offices should be in the separate charge of a member of the Institute. However, a member can be in charge of two offices if the second office is located in the same premises or in the same city, in which the first office is located; or the second office is located within a distance of 50 kilometers from the municipal limits of a city, in which the first office is located. Further a member having two offices of the type referred to above, shall have to declare which of the two offices is his main office, which would constitute his professional address. In the given case, Dheer & Co., a sole proprietary Chartered Accountancy firm in practice with an office in a busy belt of a city and had great difficulty in regularly attending to the consultancy needs of his clients. Therefore, a facilitation centre was opened in the industrial cluster and the proprietor is managing both the office and facilitation centre. Though distance between his office and facilitation centre i.e. sort of second office is within prescribed range i.e. 50 kilometers but Dheer & Co., will be liable for misconduct as prescribed intimation about facilitation centre and main office should be sent to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.