UPSC withdraws advertisement for lateral recruitment of public servants

The Union Public Service Commission on Tuesday withdrew its advertisement for recruiting public servants through lateral entry on a contract basis.

This came hours after Union minister Jitendra Singh wrote a letter to the commission’s chairperson Preeti Sudan, urging her to cancel the recruitment.

The letter was written at the direction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Singh is the minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Since Sunday, Opposition parties and a Bharatiya Janata Party ally – the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) – have objected to the Union Public Service Commission’s August 17 advertisement calling for the recruitment of 45 joint secretaries, directors and deputy secretaries across 24 Union ministries.

Opposition parties claimed that the government was conspiring to undermine reservations in public sector jobs for marginalised communities by filling the posts through lateral entry.

However, Singh’s letter to Sudan clarified that the appointment of public servants through lateral entry had been endorsed in principle by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, which was constituted in 2005 and chaired by former Union minister Veerappa Moily.

At the time, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government was in power.

The recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission in 2013 also supported lateral entry, Singh said.

“However, both before and after that there have been many high-profile cases of lateral entrants,” Singh said. “Under earlier governments,...

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