Five sitting members of the apex council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (Icai) have been defeated in elections held on 4-5 December to elect a new team in 2010. Among the losers is Shanti Lal Daga, who was vice-chairman of the fact-finding committee set up by Icai to investigate the role of auditors in the fraud at Satyam Computer Services Ltd, according to an official with knowledge of the election results who did not want to be identified.

The results will be announced on Wednesday. According to a new rule introduced in 2008, the tenure of the Icai council is three years.

The council consists of 32 chartered accountants, who help shape the policy of the institute, and also includes eight government nominees. Any strategic decision taken by the Icai president has to be ratified by the council.

Other important losing council members who were part of the executive committee include Kashi P. Khandelwal from the eastern region and V.C. James from the southern region. Vijay Kumar Gupta and Akshay Kumar Gupta have also lost in the elections.

Icai executive committee removes and restores membership, issues and cancels certificates of practice, issues certificates of membership and prosecutes members based on the findings of the council.

In the past, one or two council members could lose, but this is for the first time five council members from different zones have lost. They were all closely associated with Uttam (Prakash) Agarwal, said the Icai official quoted earlier.

Agarwal is the current Icai president who invited the wrath of council colleagues over allegations of overspending and a domineering style of management.

Neither Agarwal nor T. Karthikeyan, secretary of Icai, were available for comments.

Daga said, I dont think too much should be read into my losing the election. Neither my association with the Satyam case nor closeness to Agarwal, as alleged, are responsible. Its just voters choice. Akshay Kumar Gupta echoed these thoughts.