Comment: Comptroller and Auditor General of India. (2002, 20 Marks)
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), established by Article 148, is the constitutional auditor of all receipts and expenditure of the Union and the states and heads the Indian Audit and Accounts Department. B. R. Ambedkar rated the office above the judiciary in importance, yet regretted that it had received less independence. That judgement still frames the office: strongly protected in tenure, weakly at appointment and after the report.
Constitutional and statutory design
- Art. 148: appointment by the President by warrant; removal only in the manner of a Supreme Court judge; salary not variable to his disadvantage; ineligibility for further office (148(4)); office expenses charged on the Consolidated Fund (148(6)).
- Art. 149: duties as Parliament prescribes, given content by the CAG’s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971, which fixes a term of six years or age 65.
- Art. 150–151: the form of accounts is prescribed on the CAG’s advice; reports go to the President or Governor for laying before the legislature.
- Art. 279: the CAG certifies the net proceeds of taxes, the base of devolution to the states.
Unlike its British namesake, the Indian office has no comptroller function. It audits money after it is spent and does not authorise its release. Since 1976, Union accounts have been compiled by the ministries, leaving the CAG with audit alone at the Centre.
Mandate and types of audit
The 1971 Act reaches the Consolidated Fund, Contingency Fund and Public Accounts (s.13), bodies substantially financed by government (s.14), revenue receipts (s.16) and government companies (s.19). Other bodies are reached only on request (s.20).
- Compliance audit: was the spending legal and within sanctioned rules?
- Propriety audit: did it respect the canons of financial prudence, or was it wasteful and extravagant?
- Performance audit: did it achieve economy, efficiency and effectiveness?
The last is discretionary, yet it drives both the office’s influence and its controversies.
Relationship with the PAC
Reports are evidence, not verdicts. The Public Accounts Committee, opposition-chaired since 1967, and the Committee on Public Undertakings convert them into accountability. The CAG acts as their “friend, philosopher and guide”. In Guillermo O’Donnell’s terms, the pairing is a mechanism of horizontal accountability: one state agency checking another on behalf of the legislature.
Role in practice
Under Vinod Rai, the reports on 2G spectrum (2010), the Commonwealth Games and coal blocks (2012) made the office a political actor. Admirers came to see it as a check on the executive in its own right.
Limits
- Executive appointment: no selection committee, no published criteria. In March 2025 the Supreme Court issued notice on a plea seeking a PM–LoP–CJI panel on the Anoop Baranwal model.
- Timing controlled by others: Art. 151 sets no deadline. Delhi’s excise-policy reports were tabled only in February 2025.
- Shrinking output: the number of Union audit reports fell from 53 in 2015 to 18 in 2023. Former civil servants wrote to the President in 2023 doubting its autonomy.
- Methodological overreach: the 2G presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore was a modelled estimate the 2017 acquittals weakened; critics blamed audit for “policy paralysis”.
- Mandate gaps: PPP concessionaires and local bodies (mostly technical guidance) lie largely outside its audit, and the PM CARES Fund, a public trust, escapes it.
- No coercive power: its findings are recommendatory, and the Rafale report (2019) accepted redaction of pricing details at the ministry’s insistence.
Conclusion
The CAG, now K. Sanjay Murthy (15th incumbent, since November 2024), remains India’s most credible integrity institution. The Constitution, however, made the auditor independent and left the audit dependent on the executive at entry and on Parliament at exit. Collegial appointment, a tabling deadline and a mandatory action-taken timeline would complete what Ambedkar found incomplete.