Examine the role and functioning of the Election Commission of India and the Comptroller and Auditor General in the last two decades. (2020, 20 Marks)
The Election Commission of India (ECI, Art. 324) and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG, Arts. 148–151) are India’s leading institutions of what Guillermo O’Donnell called horizontal accountability: state agencies empowered to check other state agencies. Between roughly 2000 and 2020 both moved from routine administration to assertive public roles, and both then faced sharper questions about their independence.
Election Commission: modernisation and assertion
The ECI prepares the rolls, conducts every Union and state election from notification to result, and enforces the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The last two decades widened what that role meant.
- Standing up to incumbents. In 2002 J. M. Lyngdoh refused early Gujarat polls after the riots; the Supreme Court’s advisory opinion in Special Reference No. 1 of 2002 upheld the Commission’s control over scheduling.
- Informed voting. Following Union of India v. ADR (2002) and PUCL (2003), candidates must file affidavits on criminal cases, assets and education. NOTA followed PUCL (2013).
- Technology. In 2004 India held its first general election entirely on EVMs. VVPAT came after Subramanian Swamy (2013), was universal by 2019, and after N. Chandrababu Naidu (2019) slips are matched in five booths per assembly segment.
- Participation. SVEEP (from 2009), online rolls and registration pushed turnout to about 66% in 2014 and 67% in 2019, with women’s turnout overtaking men’s.
- Money. Expenditure observers and seizures became routine. The ECI told the Supreme Court in 2019 that it regarded electoral bonds as a retrograde step for transparency.
Limits. In 2019 the Commission gave clean chits on several complaints against the Prime Minister’s campaign speeches, and Ashok Lavasa’s dissents went unrecorded. The MCC’s non-statutory character left enforcement looking discretionary.
CAG: from accountant to agenda-setter
The CAG audits the receipts and expenditure of the Union and the states under the DPC Act, 1971, and serves the Public Accounts Committee as its “friend, philosopher and guide”.
- The 2010–12 cluster. The 2G report (2010) estimated a presumptive loss of ₹1.76 lakh crore, and the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licences in 2012. The coal-block report (2012) led the Court to cancel 214 allocations in 2014. The Commonwealth Games audit (2011) completed the picture. Under Vinod Rai the office became an agenda-setter in its own right.
- Wider reach. AUSPI v. Union of India (2014) opened the revenue accounts of private telecom licensees to audit.
- Critique. Critics called presumptive loss policy judgement dressed as audit, and blamed it for “policy paralysis“. The special court’s acquittal of all 2G accused in 2017 deepened that doubt.
- Recession. Pricing in the 2019 Rafale audit was redacted at the ministry’s insistence. Reports tabled in Parliament fell from 53 in 2015 to 18 in 2023. Sharp findings continued all the same, such as GST compensation cess withheld from the states’ fund in the 2018–19 Union accounts.
- Gaps. PPP concessions and panchayat accounts remain largely outside effective audit.
The two decades compared
| Assertive phase | Contested phase | Since 2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECI | Lyngdoh; affidavits; EVMs | 2019 MCC clean chits | 2023 appointment Act; SIR upheld (2026) |
| CAG | 2G, coal, CWG | Rafale; falling output | Delhi liquor report tabled only in 2025 |
Conclusion
Both institutions show that constitutional status gives authority but does not guarantee autonomy. Their assertive phases depended on individual incumbents and on courts willing to back them, not on structural insulation. Executive-dominated appointment, non-binding outputs and executive control over timing still limit horizontal accountability in India.