House standing panels should look into CAG reports: Prez

President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday suggested that departmental standing committees should scrutinise CAG reports which could not be taken up by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) due to paucity of time.

Government take action on the recommendations of the PAC and submit action-taken notes to the Committee.

Inaugurating the 28th Accountants General Conference organised by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mukherjee said a large volume of reports come to Parliament through CAG on all important transactions in the year.

“But only a small portion of reports are taken up by PAC simply because of non availability of time”, he said.

“Then what would happen to other transactions which are not chosen by the PAC...one idea I am giving to (Lok Sabha) Speaker (Sumitra Mahajan) she can take it up with the government, Prime Minister and leader of the Houses,” he said.

Mukherjee said that Parliament could examine whether rules can be modified to allow department related standing committees scrutinise the CAG reports which had not been examined by the PAC.

“Of course, there will be a necessity for political consensus and if the Speaker takes the lead...I think it may be possible to have some sort of additional accountability apart from the job which is being done by the PAC,” the President said.

The function was attended by Lok Sabha Speaker Mahajan, PAC Chairman K V Thomas and CAG Shashi Kant Sharma.