MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 57 of 100

Correct — option (2), only statement (b). The four statements are all about the independence of the Comptroller and Auditor General, and three of them describe an office far weaker than the one the Constitution actually creates. Statement (b) is the only one that stands. The salary and the other conditions of service of the Comptroller and Auditor General are determined by Parliament, and the law made for the purpose fixes his salary at the same figure as that of a Judge of the Supreme Court; the salary is charged on the Consolidated Fund of India, so it is not put to the vote of Parliament each year, and it cannot be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment. Statement (a) is wrong and it is the crucial one. To hold office during the pleasure of the President means to be removable at will, and that is precisely what the Comptroller and Auditor General is not. He is appointed by the President by warrant under hand and seal, but he can be removed only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court, and his tenure is fixed by law at six years or until he attains the age of sixty-five, whichever comes earlier. Security of tenure is the first condition of an auditor's independence: an officer whose duty is to report on the government's own spending cannot be dismissed by that government at its convenience. Statement (c) is wrong on the person before whom the oath is taken. The form of oath prescribed in the Third Schedule requires the Comptroller and Auditor General to make his oath or affirmation before the President, or before some person appointed in that behalf by the President, not before the Chief Justice of India. Statement (d) is wrong on the machinery for removal. There is no enquiry by the Supreme Court. Removal requires an address by both Houses of Parliament, each passing it in the same session by a special majority — a majority of the total membership of the House and not less than two thirds of the members present and voting — on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, whereupon the President passes the order of removal. The enquiry that establishes misbehaviour or incapacity is conducted under the law made for judges by a committee constituted for the purpose, and the Supreme Court as a court has no part in it. Since only statement (b) is correct, the option naming it alone is the answer. Two mechanical points help here. Option (1) and option (3) both depend on statement (a), so disposing of that single statement removes half the option set at once; and once statement (b) is accepted as correct, the choice is only between option (2) and option (4), which turns entirely on statement (d). Option (2) is the answer.

• (1)Only (a) — This option asserts that the Comptroller and Auditor General holds office during the pleasure of the President and that nothing else in the list is true, and it gets the constitutional position exactly backwards. Holding office during the President's pleasure is the position of a Governor, of a Minister and of the Attorney General, all of whom are removable at will, and it is deliberately withheld from the offices the Constitution wants to insulate from the executive. The Comptroller and Auditor General is one of those, alongside the judges of the higher courts, the Chief Election Commissioner and the members of the Union Public Service Commission, and the Constitution builds his independence out of several materials at once: a fixed tenure, a manner of removal borrowed from that of a Supreme Court judge, a salary charged on the Consolidated Fund, conditions of service that cannot be varied to his disadvantage after appointment, and a bar on holding any further office under the Union or a State once he has left. The option also rejects statement (b), which is correct.
• (3)Only (a) and (c) — This option combines the two statements that are wrong for two different reasons, and it is the weakest of the four. Statement (a) misdescribes the tenure, as explained above. Statement (c) misdescribes the oath, which the Third Schedule requires to be made before the President or a person the President appoints for the purpose, and not before the Chief Justice of India. The oath is worth learning across the offices, because the Commission asks it directly and the answers differ: the President makes his oath before the Chief Justice of India, and in his absence the senior-most available judge of the Supreme Court; the Vice-President, Ministers, Members of Parliament and the Comptroller and Auditor General all make theirs before the President or a person appointed by him; and a Governor makes his before the Chief Justice of the High Court of the State. Attaching the Chief Justice of India to every constitutional oath is a common and avoidable error.
• (4)Only (b) and (d) — This is the option that will collect most of the candidates who miss the question, because it contains the one true statement and adds to it a statement that sounds plausible and is very nearly right. Statement (d) correctly senses that the Comptroller and Auditor General cannot simply be dismissed and that a process must precede his removal, but it puts the wrong body at the centre of that process. The Supreme Court conducts no enquiry into his conduct. Removal runs through Parliament: an address passed by both Houses in the same session, each by a majority of its total membership and by not less than two thirds of the members present and voting, on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, on which the President then acts. The enquiry into the alleged misbehaviour or incapacity is conducted under the statutory procedure laid down for judges, by a committee constituted after a removal motion is admitted. The distinction to hold is between a judicial enquiry conducted by a committee under a statute and an enquiry by the Supreme Court itself, which the Constitution nowhere provides for in this context.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is created by Article 148 and is the head of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department, the authority that audits the accounts of the Union and of the States and reports on whether public money has been spent as the legislature authorised. Ambedkar described the office as among the most important the Constitution creates, and the reason is structural: the executive spends, the legislature grants, and only an independent auditor can tell the legislature what the executive actually did with the grant. Articles 148 to 151 build that independence. He is appointed by the President by warrant under hand and seal, holds office for six years or until the age of sixty-five, and may resign to the President; he can be removed only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court, that is by an address of both Houses passed by a special majority on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. His salary and conditions of service are fixed by Parliament and cannot be varied to his disadvantage after appointment; his salary and the administrative expenses of his office are charged on the Consolidated Fund of India and are therefore not submitted to the vote of Parliament. He is ineligible for any further office under the Government of India or of any State after he ceases to hold office. His duties and powers are prescribed by Parliament under Article 149, and his reports on Union accounts go to the President, who lays them before each House, where they are examined by the Public Accounts Committee; his reports on a State's accounts go to the Governor and are laid before the State legislature.

The constitutional offices that are deliberately insulated from the executive — the higher judiciary, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Election Commission, the Union and State Public Service Commissions — are examined by MPSC as a group, and the questions almost always turn on the devices by which independence is secured. Those devices repeat across the offices with small variations, and it is the variations the Commission tests: who appoints, what the tenure is, before whom the oath is taken, how removal is effected, whether the salary is charged on the Consolidated Fund, and whether further office is barred afterwards. A candidate who has drawn a single comparison table across those six columns can answer nearly every question in the family, and can also see immediately why a statement like the first one in this list is wrong, since holding office during pleasure is the mark of the offices that are not independent. In a four-statement question of this shape it is worth noticing which statement carries the most options: statement (a) appears in two of the four here, so settling it alone halves the work, and the item then reduces to a single decision between the machinery in statement (d) and the salary in statement (b).

• The Comptroller and Auditor General is appointed by the President under Article 148 and holds office for six years or until the age of sixty-five, whichever is earlier; he does not hold office during the pleasure of the President.
• His salary is fixed by Parliament at the same level as that of a Judge of the Supreme Court, is charged on the Consolidated Fund of India, and cannot be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment.
• He makes his oath or affirmation before the President, or before a person appointed in that behalf by the President, under the form prescribed in the Third Schedule — not before the Chief Justice of India.
• He can be removed only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court: an address by both Houses of Parliament passed in the same session by a special majority, on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, and there is no enquiry by the Supreme Court.
• He is barred from holding any further office under the Government of India or of any State after ceasing to hold office, and his audit reports on Union accounts are laid before Parliament and examined by the Public Accounts Committee.

• Assuming that an officer appointed by the President must hold office during the President's pleasure, when the Constitution deliberately withholds that condition from the offices it wants independent
• Attaching the Chief Justice of India to every constitutional oath, when only the President takes his oath before the Chief Justice and most other office-holders take theirs before the President
• Confusing a statutory enquiry into a judge's conduct with an enquiry by the Supreme Court, which the Constitution nowhere provides for in the removal of the Comptroller and Auditor General
• Accepting an option because it contains the one statement you are sure of, when the other statement it carries has to be tested with equal care

The Comptroller and Auditor General appears in MPSC papers as a set of tenure-and-removal questions, as a functions question distinguishing audit from accounting, as a reports question tracing the path from the audit report through the President to the Public Accounts Committee, and as a comparison with the corresponding office in other systems. The Commission favours the multi-statement format for it, because four statements allow several attributes of the office to be tested at once, and the statements usually attack the same target — the independence of the office — from different directions. The efficient preparation is to hold the office in six lines covering appointment, tenure, oath, removal, salary and post-retirement bar, and then to check that the same six lines have been prepared for the Election Commission and the Public Service Commissions, because questions frequently move between them.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Comptroller and Auditor General of India can be removed from office in which of the following ways ?

  • (a)By the President at his pleasure, on the advice of the Council of Ministers
  • (b)By an order of the Supreme Court after a judicial enquiry into his conduct
  • (c)By the President, after an address by both Houses of Parliament passed by a special majority on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity
  • (d)By a simple majority resolution of the Lok Sabha alone

  Answer(c) By the President, after an address by both Houses of Parliament passed by a special majority on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity — this is the same procedure as for the removal of a Judge of the Supreme Court, and the Constitution deliberately borrows it in order to give the auditor the same security of tenure as a judge. He therefore does not hold office at the pleasure of the President, no court removes him, and no single House can remove him on its own.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General relating to the accounts of the Union Government is examined in Parliament principally by which committee ?

  • (a)The Estimates Committee
  • (b)The Public Accounts Committee
  • (c)The Business Advisory Committee
  • (d)The Committee on Government Assurances

  Answer(b) The Public Accounts Committee — the report goes to the President, who causes it to be laid before each House of Parliament, and it is the Public Accounts Committee that scrutinises it and examines whether the money granted by Parliament was spent for the purpose and within the amount authorised. The Estimates Committee examines the estimates of expenditure and suggests economies rather than auditing past spending, and the other two committees deal with the scheduling of business and with promises made on the floor of the House.