Legislative Control Through Audit

In one line

Audit is not an alternative to legislative control; it is legislative control exercised after the money is spent, by an officer the legislature cannot remove and whose report goes to the House and not to the Government.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Comptroller and Auditor General is appointed under article 148 and may be removed only in like manner and on the like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court, his duties and powers being prescribed by the law made under article 149; article 151 requires his reports on the accounts of the Union to be submitted to the President who shall cause them to be laid before each House of Parliament, and his reports on the accounts of a State to the Governor to be laid before the State Legislature; and the reports so laid are examined by the Public Accounts Committee, which takes evidence from the accounting officer and reports to the House; so that audit is the means by which the House ascertains whether the money it appropriated under article 114 was in fact spent as it directed, and is accordingly the completion of the control it began when it voted the Demands.

Why audit belongs to this label and not only to Module IV

Students treat audit as a separate subject, and MU's own syllabus encourages it by putting the Comptroller and Auditor General in Module IV. The connection has to be made deliberately.

The argument, in three steps.

The House's financial power is a power to authorise. Chapter 1200: article 113(2) lets it assent, refuse or reduce a Demand; article 114 turns the grants into an Appropriation Act; article 266(3) forbids appropriation except in accordance with law.

An authorisation without verification is not a control. If the House votes a thousand crores for wells and the money buys buildings, the vote decided nothing. The whole value of the appropriation depends on somebody establishing afterwards what was actually done with the money.

And the person who establishes it reports to the House, not to the Government. Article 151(1): the reports are submitted to the President, who shall cause them to be laid before each House of Parliament. The auditor's client is the legislature.

So audit is the second half of the same control. The House grants prospectively and verifies retrospectively, and the two halves are one power. That sentence, in an answer on legislative control, is worth more than a list of devices.

Why the auditor's independence is a feature of legislative control

Article 148(1): appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal, and "shall only be removed from office in like manner and on the like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court."