Examine the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee in ensuring parliamentary accountability over public finance in India.

Q. Examine the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee in ensuring parliamentary accountability over public finance in India. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

Parliament's control over the purse does not end with passing the Budget. Articles 148–151 create the CAG to audit spending, and the Lok Sabha's Public Accounts Committee converts that audit into political accountability — together forming the back-end of India's financial control cycle [1][2].

CAG: the constitutional auditor - Appointed by the President under Article 148, with removal only as for a Supreme Court judge and salary charged on the Consolidated Fund of India — insulating audit from executive pressure [1]. - Article 149 empowers Parliament to prescribe its duties over Union and State accounts; Article 150 makes the form of accounts follow CAG's advice [1]. - Article 151 requires audit reports to be laid before Parliament — the trigger for legislative scrutiny [1]. - Audit covers legality, regularity and increasingly propriety and performance, flagging spending beyond sanctioned grants.

PAC: converting audit into accountability - A 22-member financial committee (15 Lok Sabha, 7 Rajya Sabha), chaired conventionally by an Opposition member, with Ministers barred from membership [2]. - Examines Appropriation and Finance Accounts and CAG reports, testing whether money was spent for purposes and within limits Parliament sanctioned [2]. - Recommends regularisation of excess expenditure, after which government seeks retrospective sanction through an Appropriation Bill under Article 115 — as with the Bill passed in August 2026 regularising ₹54,067 crore of excess spending of 2022-23, examined earlier in the PAC's 39th Report [3].

Constraints - Scrutiny is post-facto, often years after spending; PAC cannot question policy, only its execution [2]. - Recommendations are advisory, and audit follow-up depends on executive compliance.

CAG and PAC thus operate as a single chain — audit supplying evidence, the Committee supplying legislative sanction — closing the loop that begins with the Budget. Shortening the audit-to-report cycle, institutionalising Action Taken Report compliance, and strengthening outcome-based auditing would sharpen this mechanism, deepening the constitutional principle that no rupee leaves the Consolidated Fund without Parliament's sanction.

(~315 words)

Sources: 1. Constitutional Provisions, Comptroller and Auditor General of India (cag.gov.in) — Articles 148–151: appointment, tenure security, duties, form of accounts, audit reports to Parliament 2. Financial Committees, Lok Sabha (sansad.in) — PAC composition, exclusion of Ministers, examination of CAG reports and appropriation accounts 3. "RS clears Appropriation Bill for expenditure of ₹54,067 crore", The Hindu, 7 August 2026 (link not verifiable) — ₹54,067 crore excess expenditure of 2022-23 regularised; PAC 39th Report