{"id":19531,"date":"2024-10-14T01:32:37","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T20:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=19531"},"modified":"2025-10-10T12:21:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T06:51:46","slug":"sfio-upsc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/sfio-upsc\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a corporate <strong>fraud investigating agency <\/strong>set up by the Government of India.<\/li>\n<li>The SFIO was established on 21st July, 2015. Section 211 of the <strong>Companies Act<\/strong>, 2013, <strong>accorded astatutory status<\/strong> to the SFIO.<\/li>\n<li>SFIO is a multi<strong>-disciplinary organization<\/strong> under the <strong>Ministry of Corporate Affairs<\/strong>, <strong>consisting of experts<\/strong> in the fields of accountancy, forensic auditing, law, information technology, investigation, company law, capital markets and taxation <strong>for detecting and prosecutingor recommending for prosecution white-collar crimes<\/strong>\/frauds.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>SFIO takes up for <strong>investigation cases characterized by:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Complexity and having interdepartmental and multidisciplinary ramifications.<\/li>\n<li>Substantial involvement of public interest to be judged by size, either in terms of monetary.<\/li>\n<li>The possibility of investigation leading to or contributing towards a clear improvement in systems, laws, or procedures.<\/li>\n<li>Investigate serious cases of fraud received from Department of Company Affairs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Investigation<\/strong> into the affairs <strong>of a company is assigned to SFIO<\/strong>, <strong>where the Government<\/strong> is of the opinion that it is necessary to investigate into the affairs of a company-<\/li>\n<li>on receipt of a <strong>report of the Registrar or inspector<\/strong> under section 208 of the Companies Act, 2013<\/li>\n<li>on <strong>intimation of a special resolution passed by a company<\/strong> that its affairs are required to be investigated<\/li>\n<li>In the <strong>public interest;<\/strong> or on request from any department of the Central Government or a State Government<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The SFIO <strong>can also take up cases on its ownonly when decided by the Director<\/strong> of the SFIO, and also giving the reasons for taking up the case in writing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Upon assignment of a case<\/strong> to the SFIO, <strong>no other investigative agency can proceed withan investigation<\/strong> for any offence under the Act.<\/li>\n<li>SFIO is <strong>headed by a Director<\/strong> as Head of Department in the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India.\n<ul>\n<li>The Director is assisted by Additional Directors, Joint Directors, Deputy Directors, Senior Assistant Directors, Assistant Directors, Prosecutors, and other secretarial staff.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>headquarters<\/strong> of SFIO is at <strong>New Delhi<\/strong> with its regional offices at Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1<\/strong>: What is forensic auditing?<\/h3>\n<p>A forensic audit is an analysis and review of the financial records of a company or person to extract facts, which can be used in a court of law. Forensic auditing is a specialty in the accounting industry, and most major accounting firms have a department of forensic auditing. Forensic audits include the experience in accounting and auditing practices as well as expert knowledge of forensic audit&#8217;s legal framework.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/kerala\/news-reports-of-sfio-questioning-kerala-cms-daughter-veena-vijayan-in-chennai-roils-kerala-politics\/article68748465.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SFIO records statement of Kerala CM\u2019s daughter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) is a corporate fraud investigating agency set up by the Government of India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}