New Delhi: Pricewaterhouse audit firms plan to drag Sebi to court against the capital market regulator's shock decision late on Wednesday night to bar them from auditing listed Indian entities for two years - a fallout of the decade ago accounting scandal at Satyam Computer.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants, which under the ICAI Act has the power to punish its members, too, seems to be unhappy with the Sebi order, seeing it as an infringment of its authority.

The ICAI officials and members were huddled in a meeting till late Thursday to chalk out their action plan.

Sources in global audit major PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said the firm intended to challenge Sebi's order before the Mumbai high court.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had on Wednesday found PwC guilty in the Satyam scam and barred its network entities from issuing audit certificates to any listed company in India for two years.

The extremely severe order barred 11 PwC accounting firms in India from issuing audit certificates and compliance certificates to listed companies and intermediaries for the next two years.

Sebi has also ordered the disgorgement of Rs 13.9 crore with interest calculated at 12 per cent per annum from January 7, 2009 till the date of payment by two PW partners and Pricewaterhouse Bangalore.

Sebi's investigation and showcause notices found that Pricewaterhouse did not independently verify Satyam's bank statements and fixed deposit receipts nor disclose that they had taken papers given to them at face value without checking.

The audit giant argued it had undertaken verification and that the fixed deposit receipts appeared to be genuine.

In an official statement Pricewaterhouse said, "We are disappointed with the findings of the Sebi investigations and the adjudication order.

"The Sebi order relates to a fraud that took place nearly a decade ago in which we played no part and had no knowledge of. As we have said since 2009, there had been no intentional wrongdoing by PW firms in the unprecedented management-perpetrated fraud at Satyam, nor have we seen any material evidence to the contrary."

Importantly, the statement said, it "believes that the order is also not in line with the directions of the Hon'ble Bombay High Court order of 2010 and so we are confident of getting a stay".

Rights infringement

The ICAI is also unhappy with the order which it sees as an infringement of its rights to adjudicate in cases of wrongdoing by chartered accountants in India.

"We had banned the four chartered accountants involved in auditing the Satyam case for life ... however you cannot hold the entire firm responsible for a few black sheep," a member of the ICAI board told The Telegraph.

The corporate affairs ministry will examine Sebi's order, Union minister P.P. Chaudhary said .