CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 40 of 120

Correct — C, The Chairperson of the Committee is elected by its members. That is the statement that is not correct, and therefore the answer to a question asking which one fails. The Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee is appointed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha from among the Committee's members — not chosen by the members themselves. The distinction matters because of the convention that has grown around the Speaker's power: since 1967 the Speaker has by practice appointed a member of the Opposition, usually the Leader of the Opposition or a senior figure from the largest opposition party, and that convention is the reason the Committee is taken seriously as a check on the executive. If the Chairperson were elected by the Committee, the majority party would simply vote in its own man and the convention could not survive. The other three statements stand. Fifteen members are elected by the Lok Sabha from among its own members, and up to seven more by the Rajya Sabha, making a Committee of not more than twenty-two.

• (a)It examines the Finance Accounts of the Government of India. — This is correct, so it cannot be the answer. The Committee's business is the annual accounts — the Appropriation Accounts, which show what was spent against what Parliament sanctioned, and the Finance Accounts, which show the whole of the Government's receipts and disbursements — together with the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports on them.
• (b)Fifteen members of the Committee are elected by the Lok Sabha from amongst its members. — Also correct. The Committee is not more than twenty-two members: fifteen elected by the Lok Sabha and not more than seven by the Rajya Sabha, all chosen annually by proportional representation with the single transferable vote. The usual trick played with this number is to shift the fifteen to the Rajya Sabha; here the paper prints it correctly.
• (d)In case a member of any other Committee constituted by the Government is elected to the PAC, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha decides whether he should continue to be a member of the former Committee. — The longest and most technical option, and therefore the one that feels wrong to a nervous candidate — which is exactly why it is there. It is a rule about avoiding a conflict of position, and the key treats it as correct. It also fits the pattern of everything else in the option set: on this Committee it is the Speaker who resolves questions of membership, which is the very point that makes option (c) false.

The Public Accounts Committee is the oldest of the parliamentary financial committees, first constituted in 1921 under the Government of India Act, 1919, and working in its present form since 1950. It sits at the end of the financial cycle. Parliament sanctions money, the Government spends it, the Comptroller and Auditor General audits that spending and reports to the President, who lays the report before Parliament — and the PAC then examines the report, calls officials, and reports back to the House. It is often described as the CAG's twin: the audit finds the fact, the Committee gives it political consequence. Its companions are the Estimates Committee, thirty members and entirely from the Lok Sabha, and the Committee on Public Undertakings, twenty-two members like the PAC.

The safe way through any not-correct item is to grade the options rather than hunt for the wrong one, and here three of the four are things a well-prepared candidate can positively confirm. The composition figure and the accounts examined are standard; option (d) is unfamiliar detail; option (c) is the one that contradicts something specific and well known, namely the Speaker's appointing power and the Opposition-chairperson convention that rests on it. A word of caution about option (d): it is the kind of procedural clause a student cannot verify from any standard textbook, and the temptation is to mark it wrong simply because it is unfamiliar. The key does not, and the reasoning above rests on option (c) being demonstrably false rather than on any independent confirmation of (d). Two further limits on the Committee are worth knowing because they are examined as often as its composition: it looks at expenditure after the event, not before, and it cannot question policy itself, only the way policy was executed.

• The Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee is appointed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha; by convention since 1967 the appointee is from the Opposition.
• The Committee has not more than twenty-two members — fifteen elected by the Lok Sabha and not more than seven by the Rajya Sabha.
• Members are elected annually by proportional representation through the single transferable vote; a Minister cannot be a member.
• It examines the Appropriation Accounts and the Finance Accounts of the Government of India along with the CAG's reports on them.
• It was first constituted in 1921 under the Government of India Act, 1919, and is the oldest of the parliamentary financial committees.
• The Estimates Committee, by contrast, has thirty members, all from the Lok Sabha, and is the largest parliamentary committee.

• Saying the Committee elects its own Chairperson; the Speaker appoints, and that is what makes the Opposition convention possible.
• Shifting the figure of fifteen from the Lok Sabha to the Rajya Sabha — the usual form of this trap, though this paper prints it correctly.
• Confusing the PAC with the Estimates Committee, which has thirty members and no Rajya Sabha representation at all.

As a not-correct statements item on composition and powers, or as a comparison across the three financial committees.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament is

  • (a)elected by the members of the Committee
  • (b)appointed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha
  • (c)nominated by the President of India
  • (d)always the Leader of the House

  Answer(b) appointed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha — and by convention since 1967 from the Opposition benches.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following parliamentary committees has members drawn only from the Lok Sabha?

  • (a)Public Accounts Committee
  • (b)Committee on Public Undertakings
  • (c)Estimates Committee
  • (d)Committee on Government Assurances

  Answer(c) Estimates Committee — thirty members, all of them from the Lok Sabha, which makes it the largest of the parliamentary committees.