Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan on Tuesday questioned the constitutional authority of a legislature to reject or exclude findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) from scrutiny by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), saying a government cannot use its majority in the House to bypass established accountability mechanisms.

Source: IANS via NewKerala

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the Conference of Chairpersons of Public Accounts Committees of Parliament and State Legislatures in Thiruvananthapuram, Satheesan cited the Kerala Legislative Assembly's January 2021 resolution that excluded the CAG's audit findings on the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) from PAC scrutiny. He said the move had disrupted the normal parliamentary process.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine

"No legislature is competent to dismiss a report submitted by the CAG. Having a majority in the House does not give a legislature the constitutional competence to reject a CAG report," Satheesan said, warning that such practices would defeat the purpose of parliamentary institutions and the principles of accountability.

Questions over the 2G and Vizhinjam audits

The Chief Minister also called for a serious discussion on the CAG's audit methodology. On the 2G spectrum allocation, he said the estimated loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore was not an actual realised loss but a hypothetical, presumptive projection that extrapolated potential revenue from later benchmarks such as 3G auction prices and the 2014 re-auction, rather than actual market conditions in 2008. He said the CAG had stepped outside its traditional mandate of financial oversight by questioning the merits of a deliberate government policy decision instead of auditing procedural and administrative lapses.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine

On the Vizhinjam port, Satheesan said the CAG had evaluated a public-private partnership (PPP) project as if it were a public sector undertaking (PSU), mischaracterising its legal and financial architecture. PPP ventures, he said, operate under different commercial risk-sharing and financing structures, and mega infrastructure projects require state-backed viability gap funding precisely because they are not financially viable on a stand-alone basis in their early years.

Satheesan also called for a special drive to clear the backlog before PACs across the country, pointing out that some files had remained pending for more than 20 years. He said he had cleared all pending files during his own tenure as chairperson of Kerala's PAC.

Birla: every rupee must be accounted for

Inaugurating the two-day conference, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla called on PACs to strengthen their role as guardians of public money, emphasising that every rupee drawn from the public exchequer must be accounted for and used for the purpose for which it was sanctioned. Expressing concern that audit observations remain unresolved for 10, 15 or even 20 years, he called for a concrete, systematic and time-bound action plan.

Source: ANI via NewKerala

Birla said committees should go beyond examining expenditure to assess whether public money delivered tangible benefits, particularly to the disadvantaged, and he stressed the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence to improve financial scrutiny. He also highlighted the convention of appointing an Opposition member as PAC chairperson. The inaugural session was also addressed by Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, Lok Sabha PAC Chairman K. C. Venugopal, Kerala Assembly Speaker Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan and Kerala PAC Chairperson K. N. Balagopal, and the PAC Conference Souvenir 2026 was released. The conference continues for a second day on Wednesday, November 4.