Govt Auditors Seek Cag From Own Cadre

Even as the officers' association of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS) has expressed preference for an official of the IA&AS cadre as the next Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), political parties have also got into the act.

V K Shunglu, CAG, will retire on March 14. The government has to appoint his successor before that. But the issue has become complicated by a tussle between the IA&AS and IAS officers.

Since 1948, only four CAGs, including the first three, have had an IA&AS background.

For the past 24 years, the post has been held by IAS officers. The IA&AS officers say this should be reversed to ensure independent and apolitical audit functioning.

Over the past decade, CAG reports, from the criticism of the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme to the one on the purchase of coffins for soldiers killed in the Kargil conflict, have created controversies.

President K R Narayanan is also learnt to have written to the Cabinet, saying the CAG should be appointed from the IA&AS cadre.

While the seniormost IA&AS officer is A H Jung, civil aviation secretary, the others in the reckoning are Shyamal Ghosh, telecom secretary, and Y V Reddy, deputy governor, RBI.