CAG SAS Eligibility: Three Years, One Office and the Vacancy Rule

The CAG's SAS page gives a short eligibility rule: at least 3 years of continuous service in one or more listed posts in a particular field office of the IA&AD, and a completed probation. For Exam-1 of 2026 a second gate applied to fresh departmental candidates (direct-recruit AAOs were let in separately): new candidates could register only in offices with an AAO vacancy in their category (SC, ST or UR). This guide sets out both gates, the posts that count, the cases the FAQs settle (transfer, resignation, direct recruits), the litigation over the vacancy rule, and a checker. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not part of the CAG or the IA&AD. Every rule here is quoted or summarised from Exam Wing circulars and the CAG website; your Head of Department and the Exam Wing decide every individual case.

Service in more than one listed post adds up, as long as it is continuous and in the same field office. Divisional Accountants who passed the Divisional Accountants Grade Examination skip the Preliminary; everyone else registering fresh needs to have cleared (or been exempted from) the Preliminary that their own office runs.

How this plays out depends entirely on your office. One office's own circular for Exam-1 of 2026 (the PAG Audit-I, Madhya Pradesh, 05.06.2026) told staff that "this office has vacancies in only ST category, therefore only ST candidates shall be allowed to register in civil audit stream", and asked for an undertaking to opt only for CEA or CRA. That is one office in one sitting, printed here to show the mechanism, not as a national rule.

Linking registration to vacancies has been challenged. A "Most Immediate" Exam Wing letter of May 2025 records that, following the Central Administrative Tribunal (Principal Bench) order of 22.04.2025 in OA 4652 and 4846 of 2024, Heads of Department were asked to forward representations from candidates refused registration for Exam-1 of 2024 (held in December 2024) and Exam-1 of 2025 (20 to 26 May 2025) "due to lack of vacancies". The text of that order, as reproduced on Indian Kanoon (reported, not a CAG source), shows the tribunal holding that the SAS examination "is an eligibility examination and, therefore, cannot be based on availability of vacancies"; it quashed the 13.11.2024 rejection to the extent it barred those applicants and directed that they be allowed to register. The order was about those applicants, and a year later Circular 08 of 2026 still applied a vacancy condition to new candidates, so the tribunal's view and the Department's practice do not line up; we cannot say how that has been resolved. A separate case is not about vacancies at all: Circular 3 of 2026 (24.01.2026) referred to a CAT (PB) common judgment of 19.01.2026 in OA 4412, 4413 and 4417 of 2025, said the Department was "contemplating to challenge" it, and let Exam-2 of 2025 go ahead on the revised syllabus. The reproduced text shows that case concerned the revised syllabus, exemption matrix and scheme; the old-to-new matrix guide in this series covers it. The practical point is that the vacancy rule is contested and can change between sittings.

Passing SAS qualifies you for promotion; it is not a promotion by itself. Notified rules exist: the 2023 draft Recruitment Rules (comments by 02.04.2023) say they are made "in supersession" of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department (Assistant Accounts Officer and Assistant Audit Officer) Recruitment Rules, 2020, which remain the rules in force unless that draft has since been notified. We did not obtain the 2020 text itself, so the details here are sourced as follows. The CAG's own 2019 Senior Audit/Accounts Officer rules (official) describe the feeder grade as AAO in Level 8 (Rs 47,600 to 1,51,100) with a non-functional grade of Level 9 (Rs 53,100 to 1,67,800). The 2023 draft (a draft) gives Level 9 on completing four years of regular service and fills the posts by promotion of departmental candidates who passed SAS in the branch, failing which by deputation or absorption, failing both by direct recruitment. After promotion, AAOs sit further departmental exams, including the CPD examinations and the End of Training Exam for promotion to Senior Audit/Accounts Officer.

ProSyllabus has no SAS practice quizzes yet.