BY THE EDITOR
Come Parliament and state Assembly sessions and the media is flush with reports about findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, an independent authority under Article 148 of the Constitution of India. The CAG, by virtue of being the head of Indian Audit and Accounts, is the guardian of the public purse and supervises the whole financial system of the country at both the central and state levels. Along with the Supreme Court, the Election Commission of India and the Union Public Service Commission, the CAG is supposedly one of the bulwarks of the democratic system of the Government in India. Its responsibility is to enforce the Indian Constitution and parliamentary legislation governing financial management. CAG helps the parliament/state legislatures hold their respective governments accountable. None other than the venerable Dr. B R Ambedkar had said that the CAG shall be the most important officer under the Constitution of India and his duties are far more important than the duties of even the judiciary.
Years down the line though, this “important” officer appears more like a paper tiger with little real power to discharge his/her crucial responsibility of helping the parliament/state legislatures hold their respective governments accountable; the governments simply do not seem to care. Take, for instance, the CAG report vis-a-vis the Meghalaya government, tabled in the just-concluded Meghalaya Assembly’s autumn session; it is a lament. The CAG’s Social Economic Sectors Audit Report states that departments concerned have remained silent even on Public Accounts Committee Reports tabled in the House for the past several years, with some of the departments not even bothering to reply to the observations made on financial irregularities pointed out; the government has not even deigned to respond to 3,639 paragraphs over the past 33 years. Lack of action for long periods is fraught with the risk of perpetuating financial and compliance irregularities pointed out, the report said.
The CAG suffers from several limitations that impede functioning to the fullest. For one, the report is post-facto i.e., after the expenditure is incurred and has only prospective value in improving systems and procedures; there is no power to audit Public Private Partnership investments; today, NGOs have become a conduit for a multitude of government schemes, but there is no provision for auditing of funds that are given to an NGO and elected local bodies; District Rural Development Authority are now managing large sums of money for rural development, yet they also are outside the purview of CAG audits. Under such circumstances and to make meaning of the CAG, it is imperative, therefore, that the officer is given more teeth by way of judicial powers to penalise officials unwilling to cooperate, to start with. It must be drilled into the collective head of officials that they can make light of CAG only at their own peril.