There’s a forced controversy over the role that investigating agencies ought to play to now when the Comptroller and Auditor General  furnishes evidence confirming  deep embedded corruption in hosting the Commonwealth Games last year.

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If one goes by the recent experience in the 2G spectrum scam where the agencies kept mum after a filing an FIR at the behest of the Central Vigilance Commission against “unnamed person”, it’s unlikely the state-controlled machinery would immediately get into action.

If the CAG makes a report confirming misappropriation of money by government department’s officials, they contest the findings or do not take any action. It virtually amounts to the departments sitting over CAG’s findings, which in other words amounts to obstructing the constitutional authority from performing its duty.

After all, the CAG is the national corruption watchdog, onerous jobs that no other organ of the state is vested with.

A government that swears by zero corruption and finds itself in a pathetically high position in the list of corruption where corruption is rampant must not be blind to the fact that CAG alone is competent to call a spade a spade.

Thus, the situation can be remedied by conferring legal power to the CAG’s audit officers to enable them to implement their findings by making suitable provisions in the CAG’s Act on the lines enjoyed by the state audit institutions of other countries.

An amendment is needed to empower CAG officers with powers to summon the officers  concerned for evidence on oath and where default is established, after giving due opportunity, they be required to make good the loss.

It is worthwhile examining whether such officers should also be given powers to take action against an official who does not make good the loss.

Where action of a public official involves criminal liability, the public prosecutor is informed either by the CAG’s audit wing or by the department concerned for initiating criminal action under the penal code.

These are quasi judicial functions that could only be open for a judicial review by the Supreme Court.

India is a signatory to the UN Charter against corruption. It’s incumbent upon it to follow some of the national audit institutions abroad that have been vested with powers to fix responsibility on the officials who have caused loss to the exchequer and have legal power for its recovery.

Needless to say that laxity and inertia also add to the gravity of corruption.