Due to the COVID 19 (coronavirus) pandemic and back to back Lockdowns in the country ICAI has extended the validity of the Peer Review Certificate. A peer review assists the publisher to decide whether a work should be accepted or not.
The new extension is furtherance to the previous announcement made on March 30, 2020 through the website. In the announcement the authorities informed that the extension in lockdown due to the rapid growing numbers of patients of COVID 19 along with various relief provided by the state government in phased manner, their members are not facing problems in completing the Peer Review Process.
After observing this, the Peer Review board allowed for further extension to Practice Units mentioned under the Point no. C. These need to be considered along with the Announcement made on March 30, 2020 which covered cases at point no. A and B.
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ICAI has said that “the effective date of validity of the Peer Review Certificate has expired during the period from April 1, 2019, till March 24, 2020, or is set to expire during the period of lockdown, is extended by one (1) year from the date of validity of the last issued certificate subject to the submission of the final clean report* for the peer review period** 2014-17 and later, within 30 days after the cease of lockdown by such units wherefrom the final clean report* for the relevant peer review period was not received by the Board till 24.03.2020”.
They further added that “In case of Practice Units holding a valid Peer Review Certificate and peer review process thereof was initiated and ongoing,*** however, has stuck due to nation-wide lockdown declared in the wake of COVID-19 spurt, if the validity of the last issued certificate expires before the completion of Peer Review process, the validity of such Certificate is extended by one (1) year from the date of validity of the last issued certificate”.
The Peer Review will be initiated if the same has been initiated by the Peer Review Board, and the Practice unit has reverted along with duly filled online submission in the declaration.
ICAI cleared that the in case where the Peer Review Process needs to be initiated and the expert date is in between September 30, 2020 then the validity of the certificate has been stretched till March 31, 2021. In such cases the practice unit has to get the Peer Review completed and submit a final clean and complete report in front of the board until 31st March 2021.
