Who audits the CJP?

When the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) demands institutional accountability, a perfectly legitimate question follows: who audits the CJP?

The question is not meant as a clever political jab. It is the logical test of any movement that claims to hold institutions accountable. CJP presents itself as a political movement demanding accountability from the judiciary, Election Commission, Parliament and other institutions. Its manifesto, for instance, calls for restrictions on post-retirement political appointments to senior judges and greater accountability over electoral rolls.

Those demands may deserve examination. But the principle cannot stop at the doorstep of the institution being criticised. If accountability is good for the Supreme Court, Election Commission and government, it must also be good for CJP. That is where uncomfortable questions begin.

Same Standards

A political party is not merely a megaphone for public anger. Once it seeks public support, collects money, fields candidates or exercises political influence, it becomes part of the democratic machinery it wishes to reform.

The Election Commission of India already requires political parties to submit audited annual accounts, contribution reports and election expenditure statements. Its public portal publishes such documents for scrutiny.

So CJP should be prepared to go considerably further than simply complying with minimum requirements.

Who audits its accounts? Who verifies its donations? Who examines whether its expenditure matches its declarations? Who checks whether its office-bearers follow the party constitution? Who investigates complaints against its own leaders? Who decides whether its manifesto promises have been fulfilled?

And perhaps most importantly, what happens when CJP itself fails the standards it demands from others?

A party that asks for institutional accountability should voluntarily publish its accounts, donors, major expenditures, internal decisions and conflict-of-interest disclosures. It should make its organisational elections transparent and provide an independent mechanism through which members can challenge its leadership.

Otherwise, accountability becomes something demanded of others rather than practised at home.

Internal Test

India has already experienced the difficulty of applying transparency principles to political parties.

In 2013, the Central Information Commission held that six major political parties, including the Congress and BJP, were public authorities under Section 2(h) of the Right to Information Act, citing their public character and substantial indirect financing, among other considerations.

The episode demonstrated something important. Political parties occupy an unusual position in a democracy. They are private organisations in one sense, but their influence over public institutions, elections and public policy gives them a distinctly public character.

The CJP therefore has an opportunity to practise what it preaches. Instead of asking only, “Who will hold the institutions accountable?” it should ask, “How do we make ourselves permanently accountable?”

Imagine a CJP annual report that does more than disclose income and expenditure. Imagine every major promise being assigned a measurable target. Imagine members voting on important organisational decisions, minutes being publicly available and independent auditors examining the party's finances. Imagine an ethics committee whose members cannot simultaneously hold executive positions. Imagine a public dashboard showing complaints received, complaints resolved and reasons for unresolved cases.

Such mechanisms would make the party’s accountability argument difficult to dismiss as political rhetoric.

There is another dimension. If CJP criticises the Election Commission, it should accept the Commission's scrutiny of CJP. If it questions judicial independence, it should respect judicial processes even when the outcome is inconvenient. If it demands transparency from political opponents, it should disclose its own sources of funding. If it objects to institutional arbitrariness, it should establish clear rules within its own organisation.

Democracy cannot operate on the principle that my institution deserves scrutiny, yours deserves suspicion.  The real test of an accountability movement is therefore not how aggressively it questions others. It is how willingly it allows itself to be questioned.

That is particularly important for a movement born out of anger. Anger can start a political movement, but it cannot by itself sustain a democratic institution. Institutions require rules, records, procedures, independent checks and the humility to accept criticism.

The Cockroach metaphor itself offers an interesting lesson. A cockroach survives because it adapts. A political organisation should do the same, but democratically. It must adapt not merely to criticism from opponents but to scrutiny from its own supporters.

The CJP may well ask who audits the institutions.  The next question should come from CJP itself:  Who audits the auditors of CJP?  And the best answer would not be, “Trust us.”  It should be, “Here are our records. Check them.”

(The writer is a retired banker and author. Views personal.)