The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India(ICAI) on Friday said that it will implement the provisions of the new Companies Bill in letter and spirit.

"It is the duty of the chartered accountants to respect the law of the land and ensure the compliance of all the provisions", Subodh Kumar Agrawal, President, ICAI told media persons.

If there is need for capacity building we will do that and will come out, if required, with a guidance note for smooth implementations of the provisions of the bill that will become an act after the President's nod", he added.

Agrawal was in the city to attend inaugural ceremony of the two-day All India Conference -2013 organised by Bhubaneswar branch of ICAI.

He said that ICAI has already expressed the concerns of the CAs on the bill to the Corporate Affairs minister and regulators. There is some scope to address the issues in the rulemaking, he observed.

The concern of the ICAI include ceiling on audit assignments, constitution of National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA), penalty provisions for the auditors, investigating the frauds etc.

The new legislation, with 470 clauses, limits to 20 the number of companies an auditor can serve. It has also brought in more clarity on auditors' criminal liability. Besides, the approved bill includes annual ratification of appointment of auditors for five years and introduction of a new clause related to offence of falsely inducing banks for obtaining credit.Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the Companies Bill after it was cleared in the lower house of Parliament in December last year to replace the 57 year old Companies Act, 1956.

Once the new law is put in place, profit-making companies will be required to spend two per cent of their average net profit of three years on activities related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Three years will be counted as preceding the one during which CSR was to be undertaken.The ICAI has constituted a committee to prepare a report for containing the fiscal account deficit, current account deficit, ensure GDP growth and sliding of rupee against the dollars.