Ferguson Says It Had Lost Faith In Kale

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Mumbai, Aug 8: : In a significant revelation, AF Ferguson & Co, the audit firm which withdrew the controversial report on Tata Finance Ltd (TFL), said on Thursday that the firm had lost faith in senior partner and architect of the report, YM Kale, and the unanimous decision of all partners was that he should cease to be partner in the firm.

Mr Kale was unavailable for comment, despite repeated attempts to contact him. However, in a newspaper advertisement on Thursday, Ferguson formally announced that Mr Kale had “resigned with effect from August 72”.

“The statements made by the media that the house of Tatas have coerced the firm into asking for Mr Kale’s resignation are totally untrue. His cessation from the partnership was in the foregoing circumstances and was the result of a decision that was unanimously taken by the partners of the firm, consequent to a detailed internal inquiry,” Ferguson stated in a late evening press statement.

It added that the chairman of TFL (Ishaat Hussain) met the managing partner of the firm on July 9 and, subsequently, again on July 10 during which he informed the managing partner that there were many inaccuracies in the special report dated April 24, and added that they had lost confidence in the partner in-charge of this special assignment, i.e., Mr Kale

The release stated that acknowledging the seriousness of the remarks made by Mr Hussain, an internal inquiry was conducted through a series of meetings of the partners of the firm. A number of issues were brought up in the meetings, where Mr Kale was given the opportunity to present his viewpoint. Emergency meetings of all 14 partners were held on July 20, August 5 and August 6, wherein Mr Kale presented his views to the panel of senior partners.

Mr Kale has served 30 long years with AF Ferguson and has been reputed to be among the three AF Ferguson senior partners to become the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) - with the other two being Mr NR Modi (in the 50s) and Mr Minoo Modi (in mid-60s) - ever since AF Ferguson was set up in 1949. Mr Kale was also elected to the panel of ICAI for nine years.