Discuss the role of Public Accounts Committee in establishing accountability of the government to the people.

Constitutional and procedural place

• Article 148 creates an independent CAG; Article 149 and the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971, define audit of Union and State accounts; Article 151 requires the reports to be laid in Parliament or the State legislature.
• The PAC is a parliamentary committee under the Rules of Procedure of the Lok Sabha, not a fourth branch; it has members from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and by convention since 1967 a member of the Opposition chairs it.
• It examines appropriation accounts, finance accounts, and CAG performance and compliance reports, and it calls secretaries as witnesses.
• Sister committees — Estimates Committee and the Committee on Public Undertakings — cover budget estimates and PSUs; together they are the financial committees of Parliament.

How the PAC builds accountability to the people

• It is post-facto: it asks whether money voted by Parliament was spent for the purpose, with economy, and within the law, which is the core of legislative control of the purse.
• Public hearings and printed reports name ministries, excesses, and idle funds; the press and the Opposition use those findings in debate, so the people hear of waste that the Budget speech will not advertise.
• Action Taken Reports force the government to reply; a ministry that ignores a PAC recommendation does so on the record.
• Because the chair is from the Opposition, the committee is less of a government cheerleader than a departmentally related standing committee often is.
• Landmark CAG reports on 2G spectrum, coal block allocation, and Commonwealth Games were politically potent because the PAC and the public debate around them translated audit paragraphs into a demand for ministerial answerability.

Limits that a discussion must record

• The PAC cannot punish; it recommends. Prosecution, surcharge and recovery still need the executive, the courts, or a special law.
• It sits after the spend, so it cannot stop a bad contract in real time; preventive accountability needs internal financial advisers and a live CAG audit, not only the PAC.
• Party whip and delayed laying of CAG reports weaken bite; secretaries appear, ministers often do not, so political responsibility can hide behind bureaucratic testimony.
• State PACs vary widely in quality; many CAG findings on panchayat and scheme funds never get a serious PAC hour.
• Volume of reports exceeds sitting time, so selectivity, not full audit follow-up, is the actual practice.

Strengthening the role

• Fix a time limit for Action Taken Reports and for laying CAG reports in the House.
• Allow PAC sub-committees more field evidence and, where the House agrees, public broadcast of non-sensitive hearings.
• Keep the Opposition chair convention and resist treating the PAC as a parallel court; its job is legislative accountability, which is how the people are owed an explanation of public money.