Sources indicate that Bhansali will now practice from Delhi. Bhansali was initially a professional chartered accountant. During the CRB fiasco, his annual CA licence expired. This is the first time he has approached a professional body for a COP after the initiation of the CRB investigations.

It may be recalled that CRB Caps had failed to pay depositors' dues and suffered a run on its deposits in the middle of 1997 which led to the closure of its operations.

Bhansali was alleged to have diverted funds from SBI through bogus fixed deposit refund warrants issued by CRB Capital. The total size of default-cum-alleged fraud was estimated at Rs 1,200 crore.

The company secretaries' journal, Chartered Secretary, has in its October issuecarried the list of first allottees of COP which includes the name of CR Bhansali.

Says the Institute of Company Secretaries council member SD Israni, "I was not aware that CR Bhansali was given a licence until I checked the list of fresh applicants who have received the licences for the month."

"Prima facie there is no ground to deny a licence to Bhansali as he is accused but not convicted. On a monthly basis, licences are issued if the applicant is a member of the Institute of Company Secretaries and is not in full-time employment or in business," he added.

According to sources, the institute generally has no power to bar a member on allegations until he is proved guilty by the court. The institute has a code of ethics which has about 19 criteria based on which a member can be debarred from membership or be suspended from practice. The membership is usually for a year.

Iqbal Memon is a case in point. When Memon emerged as the prime suspect in the Mumbai bomb blasts case, he was a practisingchartered accountant. But the institute did not revoke his licence. It merely expired at the end of its tenure.

According to sources, there are about 13,000 registered company secretaries with about 12,500 professionals practising. This is a small number when compared to about 70,000 registered chartered accountants. Due to the smaller number of professionals the criteria for issuance of lincences are very lax, according to a practising company secretary.