With regard to the point made by my Friend Mr. Sidhva that many of these rules with regard to the duties of the Auditor-General are made by the executive and therefore, since by the amendment which I have suggested we are continuing to give these powers the same operation which they had before, we are practically investing the Executive with the authority to prescribe the duties of the Auditor-General. Obviously, there is an incongruity in this position, in that an officer who is supposed to control the Executive Government with regard to the administration of the finance should have his duties prescribed by rules laid by the Executive. Now, the only reply that I can give to my honourable Friend, Mr. Sidhva, is this that these provisions have been taken bodily to a large extent from the provisions contained in section 151 of the present Government of India Act, 1935, which deal with the custody of public money, and section 166 which deals with the rules made by the Governor-General with regard to the duties of the Auditor-General. Under the scheme of the Act the rules were required to be made by the Governor-General in the exercise of what is called his individual judgment, that is to say, he would not be required to take the advice of his Ministry in making these rules. To that extent the rules made by the Governor-General prescribing the duties of the Auditor-General would undoubtedly be independent of the Executive. Today we are not vesting the President with any such power of independent judgment so that if any modification in these rules were to be made by the President he would undoubtedly be acting on the advice of the Ministry of the day, that is to say, the Executive. I admit that to that extent there is a certain amount of anomaly, but I do hope that my honourable Friend, Mr. Sidhva, who, I hope, will continue to function as a Member when the new Parliament is constituted, will take on himself the earliest opportunity of urging Parliament to change the position and to convert the rules into laws made by Parliament.
