# 2. Definitions
In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires, (1) Accountant General (Accounts and Entitlement) means the head of the department of an accounts office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India by whatever designation called; (2) Accountant General (Audit) means the head of the department of an audit office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India by whatever designation called; (3) Accounts Office means an office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India responsible for compilation of accounts from the initial and subsidiary accounts rendered by the treasuries, offices or departments
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responsible for keeping of such accounts and for entitlement work in relation to Government employees and other categories of employees; (4) Accounts Officer means an officer, irrespective of designation, authorised by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India by a general or special order for accounts or entitlement or related work; (5) Access with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions includes gaining entry into, instructing or communicating with the logical, arithmetical, or memory function resources of a computer, computer system or computer network; and including physical access; (6) Act means the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971 (Act No. 56 of 1971); (7) Any other company for the purpose of these Regulations means a company owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Central Government, or by any State Government or Governments, or partly by the Central Government and partly by one or more State Governments mentioned in Section 139 of the Companies Act, 2013. Any other company, as appearing in Section 139 of the Companies Act, 2013 has to be read with definition of ‘control’ in Section 2 (27) of the Companies Act, 2013; (8) Audit means examination of accounts, transactions, records, data, information and documents, in performance of duties and exercise of powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General as prescribed in the Constitution of India and the Act and includes performance audit or any other type of audit determined by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. When used as a noun, it refers to Audit Department as a whole or any part thereof as per context; (9) Audit Board means the Audit Board constituted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for performance audits of Central Public Sector Undertakings; (10) Audit department or Audit institution means the offices of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department under the Comptroller and Auditor General of India responsible for audit under the Constitution of India and the Act;
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(11) Audit engagement means individual audit assignments of the nature of either attestation engagements or direct reporting engagements covering financial audits, compliance audits or performance audits, or a combination of these;
(12) Auditable entity means Union or State Government including its offices, authority, body, company, corporation, fund or any other entity subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India where characterized into Apex Auditable entity, Audit Units and Implementing units:
(i) Apex Auditable entity means, but is not restricted to, the highest authority in the Government in respect of each Government Department or function, under the audit jurisdiction of the Accountant General, for example Ministry or Head of a Department. Such apex entities are distinguished from audit units and implementing units with regard to their responsibilities relating to policy formulation and oversight. In certain cases, however, certain entities (e.g. Boards, Bodies or Authorities, Government companies, corporations etc) where though classified as audit units, may possess the necessary characteristics of an apex auditable entity in respect of a particular function;
(ii) Audit Unit means entities categorized and identified by audit offices as possessing the following attributes-substantial devolution of administrative and financial powers, functional autonomy and operational significance with reference to the objectives of the apex auditable entity ;and
(iii) Implementing Unit means the last mile service providers, entities, offices and implementation arms of the Government/Apex auditable entity.
(13) Audit mandate means the authority of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for audit under the Constitution of India and the Act and includes audit entrusted by the Government under the Act;
(14) Audit observation means a communication issued by an audit office containing the preliminary results of audit during conduct of audit, including
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comments on accounts issued as a result of financial or supplementary audit. It shall incorporate reference to criteria, sufficient details of the evidence relied upon in audit, audit conclusions and where applicable, recommendations; (15) Audit office means an office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India responsible for audit; (16) Audit officer or auditor means an officer, by whatever designation called, authorised by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India by a general or a special order to conduct audit; (17) Audit Query means a communication issued during the course of audit for confirmation of facts or inference arrived at by audit or any clarifications required by Audit; (18) Audit Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General means a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India under Article 151 of the Constitution of India or under Section 19A of the Act or under Section 49 of the Union Territories Act, 1963; (19) Audit Requisition means a communication issued for requesting data, documents and information considered necessary by Audit; (20) Auditing Standards means the auditing standards issued by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India unless the context otherwise requires; (21) Audit team leader/supervisory officer means an officer in charge of an audit team deputed for conduct of audit; (22) Comptroller and Auditor General or the C&AG means the Comptroller and Auditor General of India appointed under Article 148 of the Constitution of India; (23) Data means a representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions which are being prepared or have been prepared in a formalised manner, and is intended to be processed, is being processed or has been processed in a computer system or computer network, and may be in any form (including computer printouts, magnetic or optical storage media, punched
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cards, punched tapes) or stored internally in the memory of the computer; for the purposes of these Regulations, data, information and documents will include transactions, records, books, accounts, papers etc to comprehensively address whichever form data, information and documents are maintained by the auditable entity; (24) Draft Audit report means a communication containing the results of audit and would mean a draft compliance audit report or draft performance audit report or a draft audit report conveying the results of financial or supplementary audit or any other audit, as per context; (25) Electronic form with reference to information, means any information generated, sent, received or stored in media, magnetic, optical, computer memory, micro film, computer generated micro fiche or similar device; (26) Electronic record means data, record or data generated, image or sound stored, received or sent in an electronic form or micro film or computer generated micro fiche; (27) Entitlement for the purpose of these Regulations means functions relating to pay, provident fund or pension and related work which the Comptroller and Auditor General is to perform under Article 149 of the Constitution of India and the Act; (28) Government means the Union Government, the Government of a State and/or Government of the Union Territory as the context may require; (29) Government company means a Government company as defined under Section 2 (45) of the Companies Act, 2013; (30) Guidance Notes are issued to support guidelines to help enhance audit performance, understand a specific subject matter or audit technique or methodology etc. These are generally recommendatory in nature unless specified other-wise; (31) Guidelines are the guidelines issued by the Comptroller and Auditor General for carrying out the mandate. These are generally on professional matters. The guidelines are to be consistent with these Regulations, Standing
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orders and Auditing Standards, and are to be followed by the audit officers and the accounts officers; (32) Information means any material in any form, including records, transactions, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data or other material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any law for the time being in force; (33) Inspection report means a report issued by an audit office containing the results of an audit; (34) Local fund auditor means an auditor, by whatever designation called, generally appointed by a State Government for audit of accounts of panchayati raj institutions and/or urban local bodies; (35) Major irregularity means
(a) an instance of suspected material fraud or collusion or corruption coming to notice in audit, or
(b) an irregularity of serious nature involving public funds, particularly that relating to mismanagement, loss, waste, nugatory expenditure or loss of revenue, serious breakdown/violation of internal controls etc; (36) Mandate of the Comptroller and Auditor General means the authority vested in him in regard to accounts and audit under the Constitution of India and the Act; (37) Practice notes are the detailed instructions on audit or on accounting matters. These need to be consistent with the Regulations, Standing orders, Auditing Standards and Guidelines issued by the Comptroller and Auditor General; (38) Record means
(a) any document, manuscript and file;
(b) any microfilm, microfiche and facsimile copy of a document;
(c) any reproduction of image or images embodied in such microfilm (whether enlarged or not); and
(d) any other material produced by a computer or any other device;
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(39) Separate audit report means an audit report containing audit observations on the accounts of an authority, body or corporation whether or not required to be laid before the legislature; (40) Standing orders of the Comptroller and Auditor General are the orders, including orders on administrative matters, of permanent nature issued in fulfillment of the mandate. These are to be consistent with these Regulations and are to be followed by the accounts officers and the audit officers; (41) Statutory auditor means an auditor or an auditing firm appointed under the Companies Act, 2013 for the audit of accounts of a Government company or any other company.
All other expressions used in these Regulations but not defined herein shall have the meaning respectively assigned to them in the Constitution or in the Act. Definitions of Access, Data, Information, Electronic Records, Records, Electronic form are as per Information Technology Act 2000, Right to Information Act 2005 and Public Records Act 1993.
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Chapter 2 Mandate and Scope