Make CAG accountable to legislature: Par panel

A parliamentary committee has recommended that CAG be made accountable to legislature and that the "outdated" Act governing it be replaced.
It also suggested creation of a stringent monitoring mechanism to enforce recommendations of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee(PAC).
A sub-committee, set up to strengthen the PAC with BJP MP Nishikant Dubey as its convenor suggested that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) be allowed to conduct audit of NGOs, any enterprise or programme where government funding is involved, including in government operated agencies like District Rural Development Agencies and Public Private Partnership projects. CAG audits government departments and institutions.
Recommending that the CAG should be made accountable to Parliament, the panel said in its report that countries like Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the heads of the Supreme Audit Instiututions (SAI) are functioning under the supervision of the respective legislatures and not completely independent of Parliament as in India.

"The CAG Act, 1971, is totally out of date and needs replacement. A mechanism is also needed for CAG to be responsible before Parliament without the control of Parliament. Its budget grows every year. The appointment of the CAG should be kept outside the exclusive purview of the Executive as suggested also by the National Commission to review the working of the Constitution and CAG should be made accountable to legislature.
"The committee desires that necessary amendments to constitutional provisions to effect these may be considered. The Committee also desired a revision and amendment of the CAG DPC (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971 to redress shortcomings and meet new challenges in the fast changing realm of governance," it said.

Addressing a press conference on the last day of the second PAC of the 16th Lok Sabha, Dubey, the Chairman of the PAC's Sub-Group of Miscellaneous Matters, said there was a trend of delay in ministries and departments submitting the Action Taken Note (ATN) on PAC's recommendations.

Citing examples, he said the ATN on Bofors issue is still pending despite decades having passed. "We have recommended that there should be a monitoring cell," he said, adding the delay in submitting is more in ministries like defence and railways.
At a time when corruption allegations dog various PPP projects in the country, Public Accounts Committee of Parliament headed by K V Thomas also made a strong pitch for empowering the CAG and equipping it with technical know-how to examine complex cases of financial irregularities.

Addressing the media, Thomas said the committee has decided to call a meeting of the full CAG to discuss how to empower the audit watchdog to examine such cases.
During the examination of the CAG report on Gas exploration from KG basin, the PAC came to know that the CAG is not properly equipped to carry out computation in such cases.
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"So we decided to hold a separate meeting of the full CAG
to discuss the issue further. We have also decided to call the secretaries concerned so that the CAG can be made more powerful," Thomas said.

The panel had submitted its report to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan yesterday recommending that CAG be made accountable to legislature and the "outdated" act governing it replaced.
It said the PAC, considered the mother of parliamentary committees to keep vigil over the spending and performance of the government, should not only be examining CAG reports but "also select issues suo motu".
The present PAC's term expires on April 30 and if it is not constituted before that, there could be a discontinuity in the PAC for the first time, the sources said.
Thomas and Dubey said the current PAC selected 115 subjects from CAG audit reports tabled in Parliament besides taking up some matters suo motu like the NPA in public sector banks.

After a gap of 15 years, the PAC organised the 10th All India Conference of Chairpersons of PAC of Legislatures last September in which a number of suggestions came to strengthen the Parliament's watchdog.
Referring to the National Commission to Review the working of the Constitution headed by Justice M N Venkatachaliah, the report said he had recommended that the operations of CAG itself should be subject to scrutiny by an independent body.
It recalled that the Commission had recommended that to fulfill the canons of accountability, a system of external audit of CAG's organisation be adopted for both the Union and the state level organisations.