Indian chartered accountants may soon get to practice Down Under. This could be one of the positive fallouts of the mutual recognition agreement (MRA) that accounting bodies of India and Australia are set to initial here on Tuesday.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and CPA Australia, the professional accountancy body of Australia, have decided to work towards MRA, sources familiar with the development said.

Indications are that the proposed MRA would recognise the qualifications, training of each other and allow members in good standing to be admitted through a prescribed bridging mechanism.

When asked if the proposed agreement with CPA Australia would facilitate chartered accountants in India and Australia to work in each others country in the coming days, Mr Ved Jain, ICAI President, said the possibility cannot be ruled out. While refusing to get into specifics, Mr Jain said some conditions may be stipulated before allowing Australian accountants here.

The proposed agreement with CPA Australia comes on the heels of the ICAI signing a memorandum of understanding with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) for mutual recognition of qualifications. The agreement with the ICAEW, however, did not provide for auditing rights.

Under the MoU with the UK accounting body, both the institutes agreed on the number of papers to be completed for the purpose of membership. The MoU arrangement provided that existing members of ICAI with two years of post qualification experience will be eligible for ICAEW membership on passing the UK bodys paper on case study.

The ICAI members with less than two years of experience are required to pass three papers case study, technical integration business change and technical integration business reporting.

On the other hand, members of ICAEW could become eligible for ICAI membership subject to passing ICAIs four examination papers for the special modules law, ethics and communication; information technology; taxation and strategic management.