Q.The statutory auditor of a co-operative society is appointed by the general body from:

To keep the audit honest, the law limits whom a society may choose as its auditor.

For an audit to be worth anything, the auditor must be independent of the people whose accounts are being checked. The Act therefore requires that the auditor be drawn from a panel of auditors approved by the State Government / Registrar of Co-operative Societies, and the society's general body appoints its auditor from that panel.

Option-by-option analysis:

• (a) Any person the managing committee prefers — Wrong. This would let the committee choose a friendly auditor to hide its own faults.
• (b) A panel of auditors approved by the State Government / Registrar — Correct. The general body appoints the auditor from this approved panel, which keeps the audit independent. …

A frequent error is to say the managing committee freely picks the auditor. The independence of a co-operative audit depends precisely on the auditor c …