Audit Sparks

By Vijay Kumar

1. In the early days of independence, some bright officers in the Finance Ministry devised a method to keep the CAG busy. Before taking a decision, they would send the file to the CAG with the remark, ‘CAG may kindly see in the first instance’. The CAG and his office will slog to make a reply and finally on getting back the file, the Finance Ministry officer would write on the file, ‘we may do as suggested by CAG’. And no objections from CAG! But the very first CAG of free India saw through this and wrote on the file, ‘only in the second instance’.

2. An officer detected a major fraud in an office, of signing bills for illegal amounts. To detect the fraud, this officer also signed a few bills. Later all the culprits were booked including this officer who detected this fraud for he had also signed some bills and he had not detected the fraud earlier. The rattled officer’s boss wrote to the CAG, “: "Newton discovered the law of gravity by seeing an apple fall. But the apples have been falling right from the time of Adam and Eve. It is like charge sheeting Newton for not discovering the law earlier." It seems the CAG had a hearty laugh and dropped the objection.