The Public Accounts Committee of Indian Parliament scrutinizes the

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is the parliamentary body that examines the audit reports of the CAG placed before Parliament — chiefly the Appropriation Accounts and the Finance Accounts of the Government of India, together with the CAG's audit observations. It checks whether money shown as spent was legally available for, and applied to, the purpose voted by Parliament, and whether spending conformed to the sanctioning authority. The PAC is thus described as examining public expenditure not merely from a legal-formal angle but for economy, prudence and propriety — but the document it works on is the CAG's report. Options (b), (c) and (d) name the government funds/accounts themselves, which are audited by the CAG; the PAC does not scrutinise the funds directly — it scrutinises the CAG's report on them.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The Consolidated Fund is a government fund (Art. 266) audited by the CAG. The PAC works on the CAG's report about expenditure from this fund, not on the fund itself.  (c) The Public Account (Art. 266(2)) is again an account audited by the CAG; the PAC examines the CAG's audit findings, so naming the account itself is incorrect.  (d) The Contingency Fund (Art. 267) is a fund at the disposal of the President for unforeseen expenditure; like the other funds it is audited by the CAG, and the PAC scrutinises the resulting report, not the fund directly.

Concept: The Public Accounts Committee is one of Parliament's key financial committees. It has 22 members — 15 from the Lok Sabha and up to 7 from the Rajya Sabha — elected annually by proportional representation, and by convention (since 1967) its chairperson is drawn from the Opposition. Its core mandate is to examine the audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) — the Appropriation Accounts, the Finance Accounts and the CAG's report on them — and to satisfy itself that public money was spent lawfully and for the purposes intended. The CAG acts as the 'friend, philosopher and guide' of the PAC.

State PCS 2021 Q49 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2021 Q49 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer