Thiruvananthapuram, Keralam Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Tuesday said the legislature has no power to exclude a report tabled by the CAG from the scrutiny of the PAC, calling such a move an “unhealthy parliamentary practice”.
What is the legislative competency? If you have a majority, you can take any decision. But you are not constitutionally competent to dismiss a CAG report based on your majority on the floor.”
He pointed to the Keralam Legislative Assembly, which in January 2021 passed a resolution excluding the Comptroller and Auditor General’s audit findings on the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board from Public Accounts Committee scrutiny.
The then Assembly, he said, “disrupted” the normal parliamentary process. Speaking at the inauguration of the Conference of Chairpersons of Public Accounts Committees of the country, Satheesan said: “I think no legislature is competent to dismiss the report submitted by the CAG.
“A government with a majority in the House can pass such resolutions, but these kinds of unhealthy parliamentary practices will defeat the very purpose of parliamentary institutions and the principles of accountability,” he said. The estimated loss of ₹ 1.76 lakh crore in the 2G spectrum allocation was not an actual realised loss “but a hypothetical, presumptive projection”, he said. “The CAG stepped outside its traditional mandate of financial oversight by questioning the merits of a deliberate government policy decision, rather than auditing procedural and administrative lapses, which is its job,” he said. On Vizhinjam, Satheesan said the CAG evaluated the project as a public sector undertaking although it is a public-private partnership . The chief minister said there should be a serious discussion on how PACs should treat audit findings that fall “out of the constitutional audit purview through misconception in the audit approach”.
