The Constitution of India provides for an independent Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and State Public Service Commission’s (PSCs). It lays down that it shall be the duty of the Union and the State Public Service Commissions to conduct examinations for appointments to the services of the Union and the services of the States respectively.
However, while the UPSC enjoys an untarnished reputation for having developed a fair and transparent recruitment system, the same cannot be said for all the State PSCs. In addition, a large number of recruitments to various positions are done by departments of government and different organizations under their control both at the Union and the State government levels. Examples of such large scale recruitments which have often been the subject of complaints and controversies are recruitments to the posts of Police constables, teachers, bus-drivers and conductors etc.
The Commission feels that it is essential to lay down certain principles/norms for such recruitments to avoid complaints of favoritism, nepotism, corruption and abuse of power that have often characterized these recruitment exercises. These principles are:
(i) Well-defined merit-based procedure for recruitment to all government jobs
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(ii) Wide publicity and open competition for recruitment to all posts
(iii) Minimisation, if not elimination, of discretion in the recruitment process
(iv) Selection primarily on the basis of written examination or on the basis of performance in existing public/board/university examination with minimum weight age to interview.