Audit rot

There is structural problem with auditing in India

The Union secretary for corporate affairs has warned that the firms auditing group companies of troubled Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) have “many questions to answer” regarding the build-up of irregularities within that group. The secretary also said while the government was not expecting an auditor to detect a needle in a haystack, they ought to find if “an elephant is in the room”. IL&FS’ debt is reportedly over Rs 94,000 crore, but there was little suspicion of the scale of the problem prior to some group companies defaulting on repayment last year. Since then, the board has been