When the draft provisions
relating to the Comptroller and Auditor General were under consideration
in the Constituent Assembly, Dr. B.R Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting
Committee, said: “I am of the opinion that this dignitary or officer is
probably the most important officer in the Constitution of India. He is
the one man who is going to see that the expenses voted by Parliament
are not exceeded, or varied from what has been laid down by Parliament
in the Appropriation Act. If this functionary is to carry out the duties
— and his duties, I submit, are far more important than the duties even
of the Judiciary — he should have been certainly as independent as the
Judiciary. But, comparing the Articles about the Supreme Court and those
relating to the Auditor-General, I cannot help saying that we have not
given him the same independence which we have given to the Judiciary,
although I personally feel that he ought to have far greater
independence than the Judiciary itself” (May 30, 1949)
‘Without fear or favour’
While
laying the foundation stone of the CAG office building in New Delhi in
July 1954, President Rajendra Prasad said: “… At the present moment when
the Government is incurring a huge expenditure on so many welfare
projects … it is essential that every rupee that we spend is properly
accounted for. This important task — I am afraid, a task not always very
pleasant — devolves upon the Comptroller and Auditor General and his
office. In accordance with the powers vested in him, he has to carry on
these functions without fear or favour in the larger interests of the
nation.”
At a similar function in Madras in June 1954, Vice
President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan stated: “Ours is a poor country, its
resources are limited and we cannot afford to risk any kind of waste and
the Audit and Accounts Department will have to look upon their
functions as the functions of the greatest public utility …” In
conclusion, he asserted: “If I have one advice to give and if I am
presumptuous enough to give any advice to the officers of the audit and
accounts, it is this: ‘Do not shrink from the truth for fear of
offending men in high places’.”
At the time President Prasad
spoke about “huge expenditure of government projects,” the combined
budgetary transactions of the Centre and the States were Rs.1,354 crore
(1954-55). In 2010-2011, the total had zoomed to Rs.22, 92,510 crore
according to the Economic Survey 2011-12 .
When there was some
criticism of the CAG’s reports in December 1952, Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru chastised the Member: “He [the CAG] is not responsible
to the Government and it is open for him to criticise the Government in
reports. For him to be criticised on the floor of the House would tend
to undermine the special position that has been granted to him to
discharge his duties without fear or favour.”
Against the audit’s
findings on deficiencies in defence preparedness onMay 31, 1962,
during the debate on Demands for Grants, Defence Minister Krishna Menon
flared up: “Criticism offered by Audit to Parliament must be limited to
financial question based on accounts. It is not the function of Auditor
General to range over the field of administration and offer suggestion
as to how the Government could be better conducted.” Immediately there
were points of order and Speaker Sardar Hukam Singh pacified both sides.
On June 18, the matter was again raised and the Speaker accepted the
suggestion of the Finance Minister to seek elucidation from the Public
Accounts Committee on the role of the CAG on the points raised.
In
the 1950s and 1960s, with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as its
leader, the Congress had more than 70 per cent strength in both Houses,
which naturally gave the ruling party a sufficient majority in all
Committees, including the PAC. In 1962, the PAC chairman was Mahavir
Tyagi, a senior Congress leader, bold and free in his views.
The
PAC made an extensive study of the objectives and practices in the
United Kingdom, and of explanations and documents offered by CAG A.K.
Roy. Then, Tyagi submitted the PAC report with the following
recommendations: “The Committee is definitely of the view that it is the
function of the CAG to satisfy himself not only that every expenditure
has been incurred as per prescribed rules, regulations and laws, but
also that it has been incurred with ‘faithfulness, wisdom and economy.’
If, in the course of the audit, the CAG becomes aware of facts which
appear to him to indicate an improper expenditure or waste of money, it
is his duty to call the attention of Parliament to them through his
Audit Reports. At the present time when there is heavy taxation and
heavy expenditure, the Committee hopes that the CAG will pay even
greater attention than in the past to this aspect of his duties and that
the government will give him every facility to perform them.”
Four
months later, in October 1962, the Chinese aggression on India proved
the validity of the points raised in the Audit Report. The debacle
forced Krishna Menon to resign.
Now scam after scam comes to be
reported about the bewildering loss of public funds, counted in lakhs of
crores. But at every revelation, the Manmohan Singh government, noted
for its zero administrative capacity, maintains there is zero loss.
Can
we expect the President and the Vice-President to follow in the
footsteps of Rajendra Prasad and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and ask the
CAG to carry on his functions “without fear or favour” or advise the
Audit officers “not to shrink from truth for fear of offending men in
high places?”
On August 27, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
submitted to both Houses his report refuting many points raised in the
CAG Report on the allocation of coal blocks. I am not going to analyse
the contents of the report.
Horrifying
I am
horrified at the remarks he made to the media before going to the Lok
August 27 was released by the Prime Minister’s Office. The fourth
paragraph of the news release said: “I wish to assure the country that
we have a very strong and credible case, the observations of the CAG are
disputable, and they will be challenged when the matter comes before
the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.”
I am not concerned
here with the Prime Minster’s affirmations about the strong case of the
government or the disputable observations of the CAG. What I am strongly
against is this sentence in his statement: “…they [observations of the
CAG] will be challenged when the matter comes before the Parliament’s
Public Accounts Committee.”
How can the Prime Minister say now that the observations of the CAG ‘will’ be challenged when the matter comes before the PAC?
The
PAC is set up by Parliament and its proceedings cannot be passed on to
others until its report is submitted to Parliament. The Prime minister,
however high his position, should not take the PAC for granted. He
cannot issue a whip now that the observations of the CAG are to be
challenged. He may as well abolish the entire Committee system.
When
Hitler came to power in Germany, he proscribed all political parties
excepting the Nazi Party; then he amended the law to end all forms of
accountability through audit of finance. It is to be hoped that Manmohan
Singh and his ministers are not trying to adopt this method to avoid
struggling with the cumbersome parliamentary system of a functioning
democracy.
(Era Sezhiyan is an eminent parliamentarian and author. He was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee from 1971 to 1973.)
The
Prime Minister is out of line in asserting that the Public Accounts
Committee “will” challenge the findings of the CAG. It is akin to
issuing a whip to the committee