The Congress has always plotted, sometimes with failure, to have spineless officials at the helm of key institutions. The party is now trying to do that in the case of the next CAG’s appointment
Speaking on the role and the functions of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India in the Constituent Assembly on May 30, 1949, BR Ambedkar, Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee, said that this officer was “probably the most important officer in the Constitution of India” because he is the one man who is going to see that the expenses voted by Parliament are not exceeded or varied. “If this functionary is to carry out the duties — and his duties, I submit, are far more important than the duties even of the judiciary.…I personally feel that he ought to have far greater independence than the Judiciary itself”.
Without exception, every member of the Constituent Assembly who spoke on the articles relating to the CAG, including TT Krishnamachari, Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru, KT Shah and RK Sidhva — fully endorsed Ambedkar’s sentiments. The primary objective of the assembly appeared to be to clothe the CAG with such powers that the executive would in no circumstances be able to weaken his independence and objectivity. As a result, the first amendment moved that day was to change the nomenclature of the Auditor General to Comptroller and Auditor-General, because as TTK said, the function of the Auditor- General is not merely to audit but to have a control over the expenses of Government. The debate in the Constituent Assembly and the final wording of these Articles in the Constitution tells us a lot of the exalted perch that the founding fathers gave to the CAG.
This background is essential in order to understand the mischief that may be afoot at this juncture to undermine the independence of this institution while choosing a successor to Mr Vinod Rai, the incumbent CAG, with whom the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre has been having a running feud. The Union Government has repeatedly locked horns with the CAG over the last two years because its image has taken a beating over the scams exposed by the country’s supreme audit agency including the ones relating to the conduct of the Commonwealth Games and the scandalous and unfair manner in which 2G Spectrum and coal blocks were sold to private entities. Since they had no credible defence, several Ministers in the Union Government and some leading members of the Congress have gone on the offensive and tried, without much success though, to accuse the CAG of having a political agenda.
Meanwhile, since Mr Rai is due to retire in May 2013, there is a lurking fear that the Union Government may see this as a god-send and try to have a ‘committed’ CAG in place, just like the ‘committed judiciary’ that the Congress wanted during the Emergency. This fear is not without basis. In fact, Mr V Narayanasamy, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office let the cat out of the bag some months ago when he told Press Trust of India that the Government intended to make the office of CAG a multi-member body. The Minister’s statement caused a political uproar forcing the Minister to retract and even claim that he had been “misquoted”. But, this was enough for all to realise that the Government’s intentions were not sanguine.
There is a history to these fears because the Congress, which enjoyed a two-thirds majority in Parliament in the 1970s, turned India’s democracy into a dictatorship, made drastic constitutional changes to weaken the judiciary and virtually wrecked the independence of many constitutional authorities, including the CAG. The mantra in those days, as stated earlier, was a “committed” judiciary — meaning a judiciary committed, not to the Constitution, but to the Prime Minister of the day, Indira Gandhi. Similarly, the Government, which had imposed the Emergency in 1976, passed orders to weaken the office of the CAG. Mr Y Krishnan, former Deputy CAG says in his book, Audit in India’s Democracy, that until 1976, all papers and documents pertaining to the subject matter under audit scrutiny were made available to the CAG and this included secret and confidential records. However, in 1976, the Government decided that “only books and accounts need be made available to audit and it was not obligatory for Government to furnish records or papers containing discussions within the Government, leading to a particular decision or formulation of a particular policy”. luckily, the Janata Party, which was voted to power in 1977, restored the original provisions in the Constitution and also withdrew the undemocratic orders passed by the Emergency regime to stifle the CAG.
In recent years, the appointments of Navin Chawla as Election Commissioner and PJ Thomas as Central Vigilance Commissioner go to establish that the Congress’s discomfort with healthy democratic norms and independent constitutional authorities persists. The latest example of the Government’s contempt for norms is its move to appoint Mr SC Sinha and former Supreme Court Judge Cyriac Joseph as members of the National Human Rights Commission. The NHRC’s members are chosen by a six-member committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Union Minister for Home Affairs, the lok Sabha Speaker, the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and the leaders of the Opposition in the two Houses of Parliament. Ignoring the objections of the Opposition leaders, the Congress, using its majority, is pushing for these appointments. This is exactly what the Government did while appointing Mr Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner. later the Supreme Court struck down the appointment.
Given the rank irresponsibility and partisanship displayed by the Government in these matters, the people must demand that a collegium be appointed to choose the CAG. Some retired bureaucrats and members of the Forum of Retired Officers of Indian Audit and Accounts Service have fired the first salvo in this regard by writing to President Pranab Mukherjee and demanding that the need of the hour is a “transparent, institutionalised, selection mechanism” for choosing the next CAG. They have suggested that a six-member committee which includes the Chief Justice of India or his nominee should be appointed to select the CAG. The President must exert his moral pressure on the Government to consider this proposal. Since he is the appointing authority and since he is under oath to protect the Constitution, he must prevent the Government from appointing a pliant, “committed” CAG.