The Audit Reports: Article 151

In one line

To the President, laid before each House; to the Governor, laid before the State legislature; and then, by convention and not by any article, to the Public Accounts Committee.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: article 151(1) provides that the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India relating to the accounts of the Union shall be submitted to the President, who shall cause them to be laid before each House of Parliament, and article 151(2) that his reports relating to the accounts of a State shall be submitted to the Governor of the State, who shall cause them to be laid before the Legislature of the State; and the reference of those reports to the Public Accounts Committee, and the examination of the accounting officer upon them, rest not on any provision of the Constitution but on the rules of procedure made under articles 118 and 208 and on established practice.

The article

151(1). The reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India relating to the accounts of the Union shall be submitted to the President, who shall cause them to be laid before each House of Parliament.

151(2). The reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India relating to the accounts of a State shall be submitted to the Governor of the State, who shall cause them to be laid before the Legislature of the State.

The words "or Rajpramukh" in clause (2) were omitted by the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act 1956, section 29 and the Schedule, with effect from 1 November 1956.

Why two sentences carry the module

Read the article for what it does not say.

It does not say the report goes to the Government. It goes to the President or the Governor, who is the constitutional head and not the Ministry whose accounts have been audited.

It does not give the recipient a discretion. "Shall cause them to be laid." The President and the Governor are under a duty, and by chapter 1150's article 74(1) and article 163(1) they act on ministerial advice; but the duty is expressed as a command and no ground for withholding is provided.

And it does not say what the House must do with the report. Nothing at all follows in the article.

So article 151 does exactly one thing, and it is the most important thing in the module: it makes the auditor answerable to the legislature and to nobody else. Chapter 1360 established that he is appointed by the President by warrant and removable only as a Judge; chapter 1370 that his money is charged and his conditions unalterable to his disadvantage. Article 151 completes the arrangement by directing his product past the executive and into the House.