Independence of Public Service Commissions (Articles 318-319)

PSC independence refers to the set of constitutional guarantees, spread across Part XIV of the Constitution, that keep the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and the State Public Service Commissions (SPSCs) free of routine executive control so that recruitment, promotion, and disciplinary advice to government stay impartial. Articles 318 and 319 are two specific links in this chain — Article 318 lets the President frame the conditions of service of a Commission's own members and staff, and Article 319 stops a former Chairman or member from stepping into further government employment. Together with the surrounding provisions of Chapter II of Part XIV (Articles 315–323), they are designed to keep a Public Service Commission answerable to the Constitution rather than to the government of the day.

The Constitutional Scheme: Articles 315–323

Public Service Commissions are dealt with in Chapter II of Part XIV, which runs from Article 315 to Article 323. Each article covers a distinct facet of how a Commission is set up, staffed, and made to function without depending on the executive for its day-to-day survival.

Article	Subject
315	Establishment of a Public Service Commission for the Union and for each State
316	Appointment and term of office of members
317	Removal and suspension of a member
318	Power to make regulations on the conditions of service of Commission members and staff
319	Prohibition on holding offices by members after ceasing to be such members
320	Functions of Public Service Commissions
321	Power to extend the functions of a Public Service Commission
322	Expenses of Public Service Commissions
323	Reports of Public Service Commissions

The UPSC itself is a constitutional body — it owes its existence directly to the Constitution rather than to an ordinary statute. Its composition is not spelt out in numbers: the Constitution leaves the strength of the Commission to the President's discretion, and no formal qualification is prescribed for membership except that at least half the members must have held office for a minimum of ten years under the Government of India or a State government. This open-ended design gives the executive some room in appointments, which is exactly why the later articles — particularly 318 and 319 — matter for keeping the institution's functioning independent once its members are in place.

Article 318: Regulating Conditions of Service

Article 318 empowers the President, in the case of the Union Commission or a Commission serving two or more States, to make regulations that determine the number of members of staff a Commission may have, and the conditions of service applicable to both the Commission's members and its staff. This is a constitutional power of regulation-making, not an ordinary departmental power exercised at the discretion of a ministry. Because the conditions under which a Commission's own establishment works are fixed through this constitutionally rooted mechanism, the Commission is not left dependent on a government department for its internal administration in a way that could be used to pressure it.

This administrative insulation is reinforced by the financial arrangement in Article 322: the expenses of the Union or a State Public Service Commission, including salaries and allowances payable to its members and staff, are charged on the Consolidated Fund of India or of the State concerned. Charged expenditure is not subject to a vote of the legislature, so a Commission's funding cannot be threatened or delayed through the annual budget process — a further structural layer supporting the same idea of independence that Article 318 begins to build.

Article 319: Restrictions After Leaving Office

Article 319 addresses a different kind of vulnerability — not how a Commission is administered while its members serve, but what its members may do once they stop serving. The restrictions are precise:

Office held	Eligible for, after ceasing to hold office	Barred from
Chairman, UPSC	—	Further employment under the Government of India or a State government
Member, UPSC	Appointment as Chairman of the UPSC or of a State Public Service Commission	Any other employment under the Government of India or a State government
Chairman or member of a State PSC	Appointment to a corresponding office under the Union scheme, as separately provided	Further government employment outside that channel

A further rule closes the loop on tenure itself: a Chairman or member of the UPSC, having completed one full term, is not eligible for reappointment to that very office — there is no second term in the same post.

The logic is straightforward: if a sitting member could look forward to a government job after retirement, the promise of such a post could become a quiet lever for the executive to influence recommendations made during the member's tenure. Closing off most future employment removes that lever.

Independence as a Package, Not a Single Article

Articles 318 and 319 do not work alone. They sit alongside security of tenure, a removal process treated with the seriousness of impeachment rather than routine executive action, appointment by the President rather than a ministry, and the Commission's constitutional (not merely statutory) status. Article 318 secures a Commission's internal working conditions, Article 319 secures its members against post-tenure inducement, and the remaining articles of Chapter II secure appointment, removal, and finance.

Constituent Assembly Perspective

In the Constituent Assembly debate of 18 November 1949, Dr B. R. Ambedkar referred to the newly designed institutions of accountability — the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Service Commissions among them — as having been given more independence under the Constitution than similar bodies had enjoyed before, linking this independence to the wider set of constitutional safeguards for citizens' rights.

UPSC Relevance

Prelims

• Articles 315–323 fall in Part XIV, Chapter II of the Constitution.
• Article 318 concerns conditions of service of Commission members and staff; Article 319 concerns post-tenure restrictions on employment — the two are frequently confused in objective questions.
• Expenses of a Public Service Commission are charged on the Consolidated Fund and are not subject to a vote of the legislature (Article 322).
• At least half the members of the UPSC must have held office for ten years under the Government of India or a State government.
• A Chairman or member of the UPSC cannot be reappointed to that office after completing one term.

Mains

• Examine how Articles 318 and 319, along with the other provisions of Chapter II of Part XIV, together secure the independence of Public Service Commissions from executive influence.
• Public Service Commissions as constitutional bodies: discuss their place among India's institutions of accountability and horizontal checks on the executive (GS2 — statutory, regulatory, and quasi-judicial bodies).

FAQ

Q1. What does Article 318 of the Constitution provide for? Article 318 gives the President the power to make regulations fixing the number of staff and the conditions of service of the members and staff of the Union Public Service Commission, or of a Commission serving two or more States.

Q2. What restriction does Article 319 place on a former UPSC member? On ceasing to hold office, the Chairman of the UPSC cannot take up further employment under the Government of India or a State. A member of the UPSC may be appointed Chairman of the UPSC or of a State Public Service Commission, but is barred from any other government employment.

Q3. Can the Chairman or a member of the UPSC serve a second term? No. After completing one term, a Chairman or member of the UPSC is not eligible for reappointment to that office.

Q4. Are the expenses of the UPSC subject to a vote in Parliament? No. Under Article 322, the expenses of the UPSC, including salaries and allowances of its members and staff, are charged on the Consolidated Fund of India and are not put to a parliamentary vote.

Q5. Why does the Constitution restrict post-tenure employment of Commission members? To prevent the possibility of an offer of future government employment being used to influence a member's recommendations during their tenure, which would compromise the impartiality a Public Service Commission is meant to provide.

Quick Revision

• Articles 315–323: Part XIV, Chapter II — Public Service Commissions.
• Article 318: President's power to regulate conditions of service of Commission members and staff.
• Article 319: bars former Chairman/members from most further government employment.
• Article 322: PSC expenses charged on Consolidated Fund — no parliamentary vote.
• No second term for a UPSC Chairman or member in the same office.
• At least half of UPSC members must have 10 years' service under the Union or a State government.

Sources

• Constitution of India — Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India
• Constituent Assembly Debates Archive

Further Reference

For deeper reading on this topic and the wider polity syllabus, these standard works are recommended:

• M. Laxmikanth, Indian Polity (McGraw Hill) — the standard UPSC handbook.
• D.D. Basu, Introduction to the Constitution of India (LexisNexis) — authoritative constitutional-law treatment.
• The Constitution of India — Bare Act — the official text.

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