Which Article in the Constitution of India provides for the Post of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (1), 'Article 148'. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is provided for in Part V of the Constitution, in a short chapter of four articles devoted entirely to the office. Article 148 is the founding provision: it declares that there shall be a Comptroller and Auditor General of India, that he shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal, and that he may be removed from office only in the manner and on the grounds on which a judge of the Supreme Court is removed. The same article makes his salary and conditions of service such as Parliament may determine, forbids any variation to his disadvantage after appointment, bars him from further office under the Government of India or of any State once he has ceased to hold the post, and charges his salary and the administrative expenses of his office on the Consolidated Fund of India so that they are not subject to the annual vote of Parliament. The three articles that follow complete the scheme: Article 149 sets out his duties and powers, Article 150 provides for the form in which the accounts of the Union and the States are to be kept, and Article 151 requires his reports to be laid before Parliament and the State legislatures. The protections in Article 148 exist because the office is meant to audit the executive that appoints it, and the security of tenure given to it is the same as that given to the higher judiciary — the reason Dr Ambedkar described the Comptroller and Auditor General in the Constituent Assembly as probably the most important officer under the Constitution.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Article 343 is in Part XVII and deals with the official language of the Union, providing that it shall be Hindi in the Devanagari script and that the form of numerals to be used shall be the international form of Indian numerals, with English continuing for official purposes for fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution and thereafter as Parliament may provide. It has nothing to do with audit or with any constitutional office. The number is offered because it sits in the same three-hundreds range that candidates associate with a scatter of well-known articles, and because language provisions are themselves frequently examined.  (c) Article 266 provides for the Consolidated Fund and the public account of India and of the States, declaring that all revenues received by the Government of India, all loans raised by it and all moneys received in repayment of loans shall form one consolidated fund, and that no money may be appropriated from it except in accordance with law. This is the closest of the wrong answers in subject matter, because the Consolidated Fund is precisely what the Comptroller and Auditor General audits, and his own salary is charged upon it under Article 148. But providing for the fund is not the same as providing for the office, and the two articles sit in different Parts of the Constitution.  (d) Article 248 confers the residuary power of legislation, giving Parliament exclusive power to make any law with respect to a matter not enumerated in the Concurrent List or the State List, including the power to impose a tax not mentioned in either. It belongs to the chapter on legislative relations between the Union and the States, an entirely different subject. It appears here as a plausible-looking number rather than as a substantive alternative, and a candidate who has fixed the article numbers of the financial and audit provisions will discard it at once.

Concept: The Comptroller and Auditor General is the head of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department and the guardian of the public purse at both the Union and the State levels. Appointed by the President under Article 148, he holds office for six years or until the age of sixty-five, whichever comes earlier, and can be removed only on a motion passed by both Houses of Parliament with the special majority required for the removal of a Supreme Court judge, on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. He audits all expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India and of each State, from the Contingency Fund and from the public accounts, and audits the accounts of government companies and of bodies substantially financed from government revenues. His reports on the accounts of the Union go to the President, who causes them to be laid before each House of Parliament, and his State reports go to the Governor for the State legislature; those reports are then examined by the Public Accounts Committee, which makes the audit effective by turning it into a parliamentary interrogation of the executive. The office is styled Comptroller and Auditor General, but the Indian holder is in practice an auditor rather than a comptroller in the British sense: he audits expenditure after it has been incurred and has no control over the issue of money from the Consolidated Fund, which is exercised by the executive.

State PCS 2024 Q72 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q72 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer