Why can’t CAG reports on Delhi govt be made public before polls, asks HC

The PIL, filed by Brij Mohan, who retired as a senior administrative grade (SAG) officer in 2013 from the Indian Audit & Accounts Department (IA&AD, has submitted that the 14 CAG reports “should be made public urgently and should be discussed and debated before Delhi goes to polls before Vidhan Sabha elections are held.”

Noting that the PIL is filed for the “benefit of the voters in Delhi”, the petitioner has submitted that the voters, who would be casting their votes in the forthcoming elections, “must be aware of the state of affairs in Delhi and financial health of the city before they cast their votes”.

The delay over the filing of CAG reports in the Assembly has led to a political row with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP locked in a bitter war of words. On Monday, the High Court slammed the AAP government in Delhi, saying “the way you dragged your feet” on tabling reports of the CAG in the Assembly “raises doubts about your bona fides”.

Meanwhile, in his petition, airing his concern that “the constitutional institution of audit is being undermined by withholding CAG’s reports indefinitely, on the affairs of the National Capital Territory of Delhi,” Mohan has stated in his PIL that the court “ought to direct immediate publication of CAG reports even if the Delhi government fails to convene Vidhan Sabha session for tabling CAG reports.”

Submitting that L-G VK Saxena communicated to Delhi CM on December 18, 2024, to convene a special sitting of the Assembly to table the reports, Mohan further highlighted that “this is not the first time where Delhi government apparently tried to suppress CAG reports from public gaze,” referring to L-G’s earlier communication ti CM on February 22, 2024, to take appropriate action for laying down CAG report before the Legislative Assembly during ongoing assembly session.

Mohan has also highlighted that the 14 CAG reports “have direct impact on some controversies raging in the governance of Delhi” such as issues of excessive pollution, excise policy, health services and public transport in Delhi, and that they are “also relevant in the context of series of concessions being extended recently by the present ruling party in Delhi government, in order to find out whether Delhi government really is in such a sound financial position to fulfill electoral promises they are making, or it is doing electoral fraud.”