UPPSC 2025 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 43 of 150

Correct — C, All 1, 2 and 3. In Indian parliamentary practice the expression 'financial committees' has a settled, closed meaning: it covers exactly three standing committees — the Public Accounts Committee, the Estimates Committee and the Committee on Public Undertakings. The three sit at different points of the same money cycle. The Estimates Committee looks forward, examining the estimates included in the Budget and suggesting economies in administration and improvements in organisation. The Public Accounts Committee looks backward, examining the appropriation accounts and the audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General after the money has been spent, to see whether it went where Parliament voted it. The Committee on Public Undertakings covers the commercial arm of government, examining the reports and accounts of central public sector undertakings — work that before 1964 was split between the other two. Since every one of the three named in the question belongs to that set, the answer is 'All 1, 2 and 3'.

• (a)Only 1 and 2 — The Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee are the two older financial committees, and a candidate carrying the pre-1964 position stops here. But the Committee on Public Undertakings was created in 1964 precisely to take the scrutiny of public sector undertakings off the other two, and it has been counted as the third financial committee ever since.
• (b)Only 2 and 3 — This drops the Public Accounts Committee — the oldest of the three, dating from 1921 under the Government of India Act, 1919, and the one most closely identified with financial control, since it is the committee that takes up the CAG's audit reports. Leaving it out of a list of financial committees is not defensible on any reading.
• (d)Only 1 — Right that the Public Accounts Committee is a financial committee, but far too narrow. The Estimates Committee — with thirty members, the largest committee of Parliament — and the Committee on Public Undertakings are equally part of the standard trio, and both are constituted and function in the same way.

Parliament's control over the purse does not end when the Budget is voted; it continues through committees, and the three financial committees divide that work in time. The Estimates Committee acts ex ante — are the estimates sound, and can the same result be had for less? The Public Accounts Committee acts ex post — was the money spent as voted, and what does the CAG's audit show? The Committee on Public Undertakings covers the state's commercial undertakings, whose accounts are not ordinary departmental accounts. All three are constituted the same way: members are elected annually by the House concerned through proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, and they hold office for one year. Crucially, a Minister cannot be a member of any of them, and a member who is appointed a Minister ceases to belong to the committee — the point being that these are instruments of the legislature against the executive.

'Financial committees' is one of the small number of genuinely closed lists in polity, and once you know that the list is exactly three, an 'all of the above' answer becomes the natural reading. The distractors are built on the two ways candidates mis-remember the set: dropping the newest member (the Committee on Public Undertakings, 1964) or dropping the most famous one on the assumption that the question must be a trick. Note that UPPSC has printed 'Estimate Committee'; the correct name is the Committee on Estimates, and the slip changes nothing. Do not confuse this trio with the twenty-four Department-related Standing Committees introduced in 1993, which scrutinise ministry-wise demands for grants but are not classed as financial committees, nor with ad hoc committees such as select and joint committees on Bills.

• Parliament's three financial committees are the Public Accounts Committee, the Estimates Committee and the Committee on Public Undertakings
• Public Accounts Committee — 22 members: 15 elected by the Lok Sabha and not more than 7 by the Rajya Sabha; it was first set up in 1921 under the Government of India Act, 1919; its chairperson is appointed by the Speaker and, by a convention followed since 1967, is drawn from the Opposition; its core task is to examine the CAG's audit reports after they are laid in the House
• Estimates Committee — 30 members, all elected from the Lok Sabha, which makes it the largest committee of Parliament; the Rajya Sabha has no representation on it; it was constituted in 1950
• Committee on Public Undertakings — 22 members (15 from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha); created in 1964 to examine the reports and accounts of public sector undertakings
• Members of all three are elected annually by proportional representation through the single transferable vote and hold office for one year; a Minister cannot be a member of any financial committee

• Assuming there are only two financial committees, which was the position before the Committee on Public Undertakings was created in 1964
• Believing the Rajya Sabha is represented on the Estimates Committee — it is not; all 30 members come from the Lok Sabha
• Reading '15 members' as the Rajya Sabha quota in the Public Accounts Committee; 15 is the Lok Sabha figure and the Rajya Sabha sends not more than 7

UPPSC asks it as an identification or a count — which committees are financial committees, which is the largest, how many members it has, what the PAC scrutinises. UPSC prefers the functional angle: which House the members come from, how the CAG's reports reach the committee, and what the committee can and cannot do about them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following statements about the Estimates Committee of Parliament is correct?

  • (a)It consists of 30 members, all elected from the Lok Sabha
  • (b)It consists of 15 members from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha
  • (c)Its chairperson is, by convention, drawn from the Opposition
  • (d)Its principal task is to examine the audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General

  Answer(a) It consists of 30 members, all elected from the Lok Sabha — the 15+7 composition, the Opposition-chairperson convention and the scrutiny of CAG reports all belong to the Public Accounts Committee.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Committee on Public Undertakings was set up in the year:

  • (a)1921
  • (b)1950
  • (c)1964
  • (d)1993

  Answer(c) 1964 — the Public Accounts Committee dates from 1921, the Estimates Committee from 1950, and the Department-related Standing Committees from 1993.