The auditor has the following powers/rights while conducting an audit:

(a) Right of access to books, etc. – Section 143(1) of the Act provides that the auditor of a
company, at all times, shall have a right of access to the books of account and vouchers of the company, whether kept at the registered office of the company or at any other place and he is entitled to require from the officers of the company such information and explanation as he may
consider necessary for the performance of his duties as auditor.
It may be noted that according to section 2(59) of the Act, the term ‘officer’ includes any director

manager or key managerial personnel or any person in accordance with whose directions or
instructions the Board of Directors or any one or more of the directors is or are accustomed to
act;
The phrase ‘books, accounts and vouchers’ includes all books which have any bearing, or are
likely to have any bearing on the accounts, whether these be the usual financial books or the
statutory or statistical books; memoranda books, e.g., inventory books, costing records and the
like may also be inspected by the auditor. Similarly the term ‘voucher’ includes all or any of the
correspondence which may in any way serve to vouch for the accuracy of the accounts. Thus,
the right of access is not restricted to books of account alone and it is for the auditor to determine
what record or document is necessary for the purpose of the audit.
The right of access is not limited to those books and records maintained at the registered or
head office so that in the case of a company with branches, the right also extends to the branch
records, if the auditor considers it necessary to have access thereto as per Section143(8).
Example: X Ltd. restrains its company auditor from visiting another branch at different location
and having access to the inventory records maintained at that branch because the branch is
already audited by another auditor and the report has been received. Here, it may be noted that
the company auditor has right to visit the branch, even if the branch accounts are audited by
another auditor, if he considers it necessary to do so for the performance of his duties as auditor.
(b) Right to obtain information and explanation from officers - This right of the auditor to
obtain from the officers of the company such information and explanations as he may think
necessary for the performance of his duties as auditor is a wide and important power. In the
absence of such power, the auditor would not be able to obtain details of amount collected by
the directors, etc. from any other company, firm or person as well as of any benefits in kind
derived by the directors from the company, which may not be known from an examination of the
books. It is for the auditor to decide the matters in respect of which information and explanations
are required by him. When the auditor is not provided the information required by him or is
denied access to books, etc., his only remedy would be to report to the members that he could
not obtain all the information and explanations he had required or considered necessary for the
performance of his duties as auditors.
(c) Right to receive notices and to attend general meeting – The auditors of a company
are entitled to attend any general meeting of the company (the right is not restricted to those at
which the accounts audited by them are to be discussed); also to receive all the notices and
other communications relating to the general meetings, which members are entitled to receive
and to be heard at any general meeting in any part of the business of the meeting which
concerns them as auditors.
Section 146 of the Companies Act, 2013 discusses right as well as duty of the auditor.
According to the section 146:
“all notices of, and other communications relating to, any general meeting shall be forwarded to
the auditor of the company, and the auditor shall, unless otherwise exempted by the company,
attend either by himself or through his authorised representative, who shall also be qualified to
be an auditor, any general meeting and shall have right to be heard at such meeting on any part
of the business which concerns him as the auditor.”
Thus, it is right of the auditor to receive notices and other communications relating to any general
meeting and to be heard at such meeting, relating to the matter of his concern, however, it is
duty of the auditor to attend the same or through his authorised representative unless otherwise
exempted.
(d) Right to report to the members of the company on the accounts examined by him –
The auditor shall make a report to the members of the company on the accounts examined by
him and on every financial statements which are required by or under this Act to be laid before
the company in general meeting and the report shall after taking into account the provisions of
this Act, the accounting and auditing standards and matters which are required to be included
in the audit report under the provisions of this Act or any rules made there under or under any
order made under this section and to the best of his information and knowledge, the said
accounts, financial statements give a true and fair view of the state of the company’ s affairs as
at the end of its financial year and profit or loss and cash flow for the year and such other matters
as may be prescribed.
(e) Right to Lien – In terms of the general principles of law, any person having the lawful
possession of somebody else’s property, on which he has worked, may retain the property for
non-payment of his dues on account of the work done on the property. On this premise, auditor
can exercise lien on books and documents placed at his possession by the client for non
payment of fees, for work done on the books and documents. The Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England and Wales has expressed a similar view on the following conditions:
(i) Documents retained must belong to the client who owes the money.
(ii) Documents must have come into possession of the auditor on the authority of the client.
They must not have been received through irregular or illegal means. In case of a company
client, they must be received on the authority of the Board of Directors.
(iii) The auditor can retain the documents only if he has done work on the documents assigned
to him.
(iv) Such of the documents can be retained which are connected with the work on which fees
have not been paid.
Under section 128 of the Act, books of account of a company must be kept at the registered
office. These provisions ordinarily make it impracticable for the auditor to have possession of
the books and documents. The company provides reasonable facility to auditor for inspection of
the books of account by directors and others authorised to inspect under the Act. Taking an
overall view of the matter, it seems that though legally, auditor may exercise right of lien in cases
of companies, it is mostly impracticable for legal and practicable constraints. His working papers
being his own property, the question of lien, on them does not arise.SA 230 issued by ICAI on Audit Documentation (explanatory text, A- 25), “Standard on Quality
Control (SQC) 1, “Quality Control for Firms that Perform Audits and Reviews of Historical
Financial Information, and Other Assurance and Related Services Engagements”, issued by the
Institute, provides that, unless otherwise specified by law or regulation, audit documentation is
the property of the auditor. He may at his discretion, make portions of, or extracts from, audit
documentation available to clients, provided such disclosure does not undermine the validity of
the work performed, or, in the case of assurance engagements, the independence of the auditor
or of his personnel.”