Article 312 of Indian Constitutions provides for the creation of All India Services

Article 312 provides for the creation of All India Services. An All India Service is different from both the Central and the State services. It has been pointed out earlier that under Article 309, the States are entitled to create their own civil services and lay down their own conditions of service just as the Centre is entitled to create its own services, make recruitment and lay down conditions of service.

Thus while Article 309 provides for separate jurisdictions for the Centre and the States, Article 312 takes away to some extent the autonomy of the States in this field by vesting in the Centre the authority to create All India Services.

However, the framers were anxious to see that the vesting of such authority in the Centre should be with the consent of a substantial majority of the representatives of the States.

This is why Article 312 provides that an All India Service can be created only if the Council of State declares by a resolution supported by not less than a two-thirds majority that it is necessary in the national interest to create one or more such All India Services.

Such a resolution should be considered as tantamount to an authority given by the States. When once such a resolution is passed, Parliament is competent to constitute such an All India Service and lay down details connected with it.

All India Services, by their very nature, are instruments of national integration and national unity. They ensure the maintenance of common standards all over the country in certain vital fields of administration.

They facilitate the existence of a hard core of officials in every State who, because of their membership in a service which falls, within the jurisdiction of the Centre, feel more free and independent to act with a national outlook and keeping in view the national interests.

The framers of the Constitution had originally no intention of creating such All India Services. This was why the Draft Constitution did not make any provision in this regard.

But the partition of the country and the creation of Pakistan, and the extremely unsettled conditions that prevailed in the country in the early days of Independence convinced those in authority of the necessity of such services as powerful instruments for the preservation of national unity. The example of the Indian Civil Service provided the necessary experience for the creation of such All India Services.

Originally, besides the old Indian Civil Service, there were only two All India Services, namely: the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service. Legislation was enacted in 1962 for the establishment of three more All India Services.

These are: (1) the Indian Service of Engineers; (2) the Indian Forest Service; and (3) the Indian Medical and Health Service. The establishment of an Indian Agricultural Service has been accepted in principle and proposals for the establishment of an Indian Educational Service and an Indian Judicial Service are at present under active consideration. The Union has, however, created a number of Central Services. The more important of these are:

(1) Indian Foreign Service

(2) Indian Audit and Accounts Service

(3) Indian Defence Accounts Service

(4) Income-tax Officers (Class I) Service

(5) Indian Railway Accounts Service

(6) Indian Customs and Central Excise Service

(7) Transportation (Traffic) and Commercial Departments of the Superior Revenue Establishment of Indian Railways

(8) Military Lands and Cantonment Service

(9) Indian Postal Service

(10) Central Engineering Service

(11) Indian Railway Service of Engineering

(12) Superior Telegraph Engineering and Wireless Branches of the Posts and Telegraph Department

(13) Central Secretariat Service

(14) Central Information Service

(15) Indian Ordinance Factories Service

The Constitution embodies also certain provisions aimed at safeguarding the interests of members of the Indian Civil Service.