People want the Right to Information (RTI) Act to include the PM CARES Fund and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to look into it. This legal study demonstrates that more and more people want public welfare funds to be accountable because they are anxious about how the money is spent and how donors’ privacy is protected.
Important Requests Asking for a CAG audit
Activists and average people who don’t like the government have recently taken a number of public-interest lawsuits (PILs) to the Supreme Court. In 2020, Anjali Bhardwaj and other RTI activists submitted a well-known petition asking the CAG to do audits. They alleged that the folks gave them the cash. These files are back in the press after hearings in early 2026. People who signed the petition said that the fund is now a permanent thing that helps with things like disaster relief that have nothing to do with COVID.
Article 149 of the Constitution says that PM CARES must do what it says. This article says that the CAG can check on all government spending. The petitioners use past decisions, such as the Supreme Court’s 2014 order asking the CAG to look into state-run lotteries, to back up their allegation that corporate social responsibility (CSR) payments are public spending. In January 2026, Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and the other judges heard arguments about whether the fact that the Prime Minister and other high-ranking officials are in charge of the fund means that the public is responsible for it.
The government says that donations will reach over ₹10,000 crore by 2022, which supports these claims. The CAG’s 2023 report on pandemic spending indicated that previous programs had issues, thus PM CARES had to be more accessible. People who signed the petition said that not having a third party look at selective spending reports harms people’s trust.
Push for RTI to be used
People who sign petitions and seek for audits want the RTI Act of 2005 to make PM CARES a “public authority.” Section 2(h) specifies that they are groups that the government runs or pays a lot of money to. Activists claim that PM CARES fits this condition because it has a website on the MyGov platform, tax advantages under Section 80G, and a well-known plan for foreign direct investment (FDI).
This difference is obvious thanks to Vinod Rai, a former CAG, and other specialists. Rai also said that voluntary funds like PMNRF had to file public audited statements every year. He wanted to know why PM CARES doesn’t do the same thing. Gautam Bhatia, a lawyer, argues that judicial scrutiny is vitally important to stop “trust washing,” which is when public money is exploited to make it look like private donations.
The government gave reasons for and against
The Union government has consistently defended PM CARES’s freedom to be free. In earlier sessions, Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General, said that it was like a personal trust and that CAG audits would discourage private donations because they would invade the privacy of the people who contributed them. In 2021, the Supreme Court backed this up by saying that the RTI doesn’t cover the fund because the state doesn’t provide it most of the money.
What this means for watching over government money
If the court rules in India’s favor, the way India pays for social services may change. If CAG audits were required, there would be more regular checks, which may lead to more conversations in Parliament about how to spend money wisely. Adding RTI might demonstrate how contributors effect decisions, which would make people less worried about conflicts of interest when making rules. The U.S. Red Cross warned it would make people less willing to help, which is what it said when it criticized its efforts in Haiti.
People who care about the subject all have different opinions:
People who work for NGOs are worried that going too far could affect smaller trusts.
Corporate Donors: Don’t let anyone know who they are so you can stay ahead of the game.
Lawyers: Back reforms that make sense, such disclosures based on specific levels.
This kind of money from all over the world helps things get better. The UK National Lottery, for instance, gives away £2 billion per year. The Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund should be looked at by the Australian government.
What experts and those who are interested say and think Prashant Bhushan, a constitutional lawyer who supports the petitioners, said, “Public money needs a public audit; anything less hurts democracy.” According to BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, it was a “proven success” and oxygen plants have saved 50,000 lives. According to Transparency International India’s 2025 report, India is the 85th most corrupt country in the world. The report says that the courts shouldn’t hear these cases.
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and other civil society groups have filed amicus papers that detail more than 500 RTI requests that PM CARES has not addressed. Researchers at NIPFP claim that the fund’s corpus makes 7–8% from bonds, but expenditure that hasn’t been confirmed could cause money to leak. These voices make the case for a settlement even stronger.
Things that could go wrong and what would happen if they did
When the courts decide, they look at how well PM CARES balances openness and efficiency. The CAG could tell auditors from 2020 to fix any faults they committed. If RTI gets bigger, it might need its own gateway to make it easier for people to use.
People will trust you more if everything goes well, and it will make them give you more money. People that are negative think that legal fights will take a long time and a lot of time in court. By 2026, India wants to bring its budget deficit down to 4.5%. This kind of criticism of the government makes people more responsible. The outcome will have an impact on welfare funding nationwide.
Since the Supreme Court heard appeals, there has been a lot of conversation regarding the PM CARES Fund audit and RTI openness.
