Serious violations of accounting principles as well as major financial irregularities have been detected in several entities of PricewaterhouseCoopers India (PwC India), which would seem to indicate that the company has been wrongfully dressing up its own books and those of its network audit firms in order to remain profitable.

Several PwC India top honchos, including chairman Deepak Kapoor and some senior directors, signed backdated invoices, which smells of large-scale financial manipulation, and could spell further trouble for the company already tainted by being the auditor in the high-profile Satyam scam of 2009.

The violations at PwC India have the potential to land it in serious trouble with various regulators, including the corporate affairs ministry, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and auditing watchdog Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

They could also contravene the Indian Penal Code as falsification of accounts and misrepresentation of facts is a criminal offence.

Papers accessed by TOI show that PwC India entities, including tax and business advisory services company PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd ( PwCPL) and auditing firm Price Waterhouse (PW), had been falsifying accounts and backdating and manipulating invoices, to show money received as 'grant' after close of a particular financial year as income of the earlier year. (TNN)