Criticism of Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Paul H Appleby, in his two reports on Indian Administration, was very critical of the role of CAG and attacked the significance of his work. He also suggested that the CAG should be relieved of the responsibility of audit. In other words, he recommended the abolition of the office of CAG. His points of criticism of Indian audit are as follows:

1. The function of the CAG in India, is in a large measure, an inheritance from the colonial rule.
2. The CAG is today a primary cause of widespread and paralysing unwillingness to decide and to act. Auditing has a repressive and negative influence.
3. The Parliament has a greatly exaggerated notion of the importance of auditing to Parliamentary responsibility, and so has failed to define the functions of the CAG as the Constitution contemplated it would do.
4. The CAG’s function is not really a very important one. Auditors do not know and cannot be expected to know very much about good administration; their prestige is highest with others who do not know much about administration.
5. Auditors know what is auditing, which is not administration; it is a necessary, but a highly pedestrian function with a narrow perspective and a very limited usefulness.
   
6. A deputy secretary in the department knows more about the problems in his department than the CAG and his entire staff.