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Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) – Indian Polity Notes APSC Exam

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Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG)

Polity Notes for APSC, UPSC & State exams

The Constitution of India (Article 148) provides for an independent office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). In 1971, the central government enacted the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (Duties, Powers, and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971. Articles 148 – 151 of the Constitution of India deal with the institution of the CAG of India.

  • He is the head of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department and chief Guardian of Public purse.
  • The CAG is appointed by the President of India by a warrant under his hand and seal. 
  • He holds office for a period of six years or up to the age of 65years, whichever is earlier. 
  • He can resign any time from his office by addressing the resignation letter to the president.  He can also be removed by the president on the basis of a resolution passed to that effect by both the Houses of Parliament with special majority, either on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.
  • CAG audits the accounts related to all expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India, Consolidated Fund of each state and UT having a legislative assembly. 
  • CAG audits all expenditure from the Contingency Fund of India and the Public Account of India as well as the Contingency Fund and Public Account of each state. 
  • CAG audits all trading, manufacturing, profit and loss accounts, balance sheets and other subsidiary accounts kept by any department of the Central Government and the state governments. 
  • CAG audits the receipts and expenditure of all bodies and authorities substantially financed from the Central or State revenues; government companies; other corporations and bodies, when so required by related laws.
  • He acts as a guide, friend and philosopher of the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament.
  • The CAG is also the statutory auditor of Government-owned corporations and conducts supplementary audit of government companies in which the Government has an equity share of at least 51 percent or subsidiary companies of existing government companies.
  • The reports of the CAG are laid before the Parliament/Legislatures and are being taken up for discussion by the Public Accounts Committees (PACs) and Committees on Public Undertakings (COPUs), which are special committees in the Parliament of India and the state legislatures.

The CAG is ranked 9th and enjoys the same status as a sitting judge of Supreme Court of India in order of precedence.

G. C. Murmu is the current CAG of India. He assumed office on 8 August 2020. He is the 14th CAG of India.

Forty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of India, 1978

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Forty-fourth Constitution Amendment Act, 1978

Indian Polity Notes APSC, UPSC and State Exam Notes

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  • Restored the original term of the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies.
  • Restored the provisions with regard to the quorum in the Parliament and state legislatures. 
  • Omitted the reference to the British House of Commons in the provisions pertaining to parliamentary privileges. 
  • Gave constitutional protection to publication in a newspaper of true reports of the proceedings of the Parliament and the state legislatures. 
  • Empowered the president to send back once the advice of the cabinet for reconsideration. But, the reconsidered advice is to be binding on the president. 
  • Deleted the provision which made the satisfaction of the president, governor, and administrators final in issuing ordinances. 
  • Restored some of the powers of the Supreme Court and high courts. 
  • Replaced the term ‘internal disturbance’ by ‘armed rebellion’ in respect of national emergency. 
  • Made the President declare a national emergency only on the written recommendation of the cabinet. 
  • Made certain procedural safeguards with respect to a national emergency and President’s rule. 
  • Deleted the right to property from the list of Fundamental Rights and made it only a legal right. 
  • Provided that the fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended during a national emergency. 
  • Omitted the provisions which took away the power of the court to decide the election disputes of the president, the vice-president, the prime minister and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
Important Books for Assam General Knowledge 
  Economy of Assam
  Environment & Ecology
  Geography of Assam
  History of Britain
  Assam – Art & Culture
  History of Assam – Ahom and British Period
  History of Assam – Ancient Period

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Indian National Flag, Anthem, Song & State Emblem of India – Indian Polity Note for APSC Exam

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Indian National Flag, Anthem, Song & State Emblem of India

Indian Polity Notes for APSC, UPSC and State Exams

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Indian National Flag
  • The Indian National Flag was designed by Pingali Venkayya. 
  • The national flag of India is a horizontal rectangular tricolour flag of India saffron, white and India green; with the Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue at its centre.
  • It was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on 22 July 1947, and it became the official flag of the Dominion of India on 15 August 1947.
  • The flag was subsequently retained as that of the Republic of India. In India, the term “tricolour” almost always refers to the Indian national flag.
  • Usage of the flag is governed by the Flag Code of India and other laws relating to the national emblems. The original code prohibited use of the flag by private citizens except on national days such as the Independence day and the Republic Day.
  • In 2002, on hearing an appeal from a private citizen, Naveen Jindal, the Supreme Court of India directed the Government of India to amend the code to allow flag usage by private citizens. Subsequently, the Union Cabinet of India amended the code to allow limited usage. The code was amended once more in 2005 to allow some additional use including adaptations on certain forms of clothing.
Indian National Anthem
  • The National Anthem of India Jana-gana-mana was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on 24 January 1950. It was composed originally as Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore.
  • It was first sung on 27 December 1911 at the Kolkata Session of the Indian National Congress.
  • A formal rendition of the national anthem takes approximately 52 seconds.
Indian National Song
  • On 24 January 1950, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted “Vande Mataram” as a national song. It was composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. 
  • The poem was first published in 1882 as part of Chatterjee’s Bengali novel Anandmath. It is an ode to the motherland, personified as the “mother goddess” is later verses, of the people. Indian nationalist and philosopher Sri Aurobindo referred Vande Mataram as the “national Anthem of Bengal”.
  • The poem played a vital role in the Indian independence movement. It first gained political significance when it was recited by Rabindranath Tagore at Congress in 1896.
  • By 1905, it had become a popular amongst political activists and freedom fighters as a marching song. The song, as well as Anandmath, were banned under British colonial rule under threat of imprisonment, making its use revolutionary. The ban was ultimately overturned by the Indian government upon independence in 1947.
State Emblem of India
  • The State Emblem of India is the national emblem of the Republic of India and is used by the union government, many state governments, and other government agencies. The emblem is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka, an ancient sculpture originally erected at the Sarnath, dating back to 280 BCE during the Maurya Empire.
  • It became the emblem of the Dominion of India in December 1947. The emblem was adopted by the Government of India on January 26, 1950, the same day that India became a republic.
  • The emblem features four Asiatic lions standing back to back, symbolizing power, courage, confidence, and faith. The lions are mounted on a circular abacus and the abacus is mounted on a lotus. The wheel of the law, Dharmachakra, is in the center of the abacus. The wheel has 24 spokes, which symbolize the progress and evolution of human civilization.

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Charter Act of 1833 – Indian Polity Notes for APSC Exams

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Charter Act of 1833

Indian Polity Notes APSC, UPSC and State Exam Notes

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Features of Charter Act of 1833:  

  1. It made the Governor-General of Bengal as the Governor-General of India and vested in him all civil and military powers.

  2. It deprived the governor of Bombay and Madras of their legislative powers. The Governor-General of India was given exclusive legislative powers for the entire British India. 

  3. The laws made under the previous acts were called as Regulations while laws made under this act were called as Acts.

  4. It ended the activities of the East India Company as a commercial body, which became a purely administrative body.

  5. This Act attempted to introduce a system of open competition for selection of civil servants, and stated that the Indians should not be debarred from holding any place, office and employment under the Company. However, this provision was negated after opposition from the Court of Directors.

Important Books for Assam General Knowledge 
  Economy of Assam
  Environment & Ecology
  Geography of Assam
  History of Britain
  Assam – Art & Culture
  History of Assam – Ahom and British Period
  History of Assam – Ancient Period

Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 – Polity Notes for APSC Exam

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Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

Polity Notes for APSC, UPSC and State exams

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The Parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019 which received the President’s assent to become an Act. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955.

The Citizenship Act,1955 provides various ways in which citizenship may be acquired. It provides for citizenship by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation and by incorporation of the territory into India.

In addition, it regulates the registration of Overseas Citizen of India Cardholders (OCIs) and their rights. An OCI is entitled to some benefits such as a multiple-entry, multipurpose lifelong visa to visit India.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act grants citizenship to the Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhist, Jains and Parsis  fromfrom India’s three Muslim-majority neighbours – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who had arrived in India before 31 December 2014, facing religious persecution in the three nations.

This amendment is of the Citizenship Act, 1955 which requires the applicant to haveresided in India for 11 of the previous 14 years. Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016relaxes this requirement from 11 years to six years, for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from the three nations.The Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019further reduces the period of naturalisation for such group of persons from six years to five years.

CAA not applicable to Areas

  • The Act does not apply to tribal areas of Tripura, Mizoram, Assam and Meghalaya because of being included in the 6th Schedule of the Constitution.
  • Also areas that fall under the Inner Limit notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, will also be outside the Act’s purview. This keeps almost entire Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland out of the ambit of the Act.

Why protest against CAA 2019

In the northeast, the protest is against the Act’s implementation in their areas, as people fear that if implemented, the Act will cause a rush of immigrants that may alter their demographic and linguistic uniqueness.

The CAA 219 contradicts the Assam Accord (1985), which states that illegal migrants, irrespective of religion, heading in from Bangladesh after March 25, 1971, would be deported.

A huge no. of illegal Bangladeshi migrants are present in Assam and they have inalienably altered the demography of the state, besides putting a severe strain on the state’s resources and economy.

It is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution (which guarantees the right to equality and applicable to both the citizens and foreigners) and the principle of secularism enshrined in the preamble of the constitution.

The Act does not covered several other refugees that include Tamils from Sri Lanka and Hindu Rohingya from Myanmar.

It will be difficult to differentiate between illegal migrants and those persecuted.

The base of the CAA is religious oppression in these three countries and thus, may worsen our bilateral ties with them.

  How is citizenship acquired in India?   In India, citizenship is regulated by the Citizenship Act, 1955. The Act specifies that citizenship may be acquired in India through five methods – by birth in India, by descent, through registration, by naturalisation (extended residence in India), and by incorporation of territory into India.  

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