Hyderabad: There is no provision for the state government to approach the High Court. Senior counsel Ramakrishna Reddy said that the CAG is a Constitutional body to audit the government expenditure. It comes into the picture after the government spends the money, and not before.
Constitutional expert P.P. Rao too said that the YSR Congress proposal was constitutionally invalid and not practicable. Chartered accountant Narasimha Murthy said that the CAG does not do pre-audits.
The CAG only examines whether or not the government expenditure was done according to rules. However, he said, the state government can appoint any agency on its own to get a pre-audit, but the CAG will not do this.
Earlier, Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy told the media, while releasing the party’s manifesto, that everyone was speaking about corruption but no one had come up with an idea on curbing it.
He explained that the YSRC, on forming government, would forward tender documents and policy decisions involving public money to the High Court and the Comptroller and Auditor General in advance, instead of leaving them to do a post-mortem.
He said that the government would follow suggestions given by the High Court and CAG before implementing policy. He also said that his government would ask the High Court and the CAG to suggest a suitable auth-ority that would review policy decisions before it is implemented.
After that, he said, if any media, “particularly Eenadu” writes against such government decisions, cases should be booked for contempt of court and they would be jailed. He said that the YSRC government would not be scared of media attacks, and would be accountable to the people.
