The decision of the Union government to advise the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to drop its advertisement calling for candidates to apply for 45 posts of joint secretary/director or deputy secretary at the Centre through the lateral route is a welcome decision. While advising the UPSC on the desirability of dropping the move, the Union minister for personnel and public grievances told the Central government’s recruiter that the advertisement for the posts did not provide for reservation of them and hence it is against the government’s commitment to uphold principles of social justice. It is the legally sustainable position and will save the government from assured political backlash ahead of Assembly elections in some crucial states.
Lateral entry has been hailed as a route to attract resourceful people outside the government to join it with specific skill sets so that they can inject fresh thoughts into the cluttered system and make it more efficient. The second administrative reforms commission had in 2005 suggested such a route and the Union government has gone ahead with the process once in the past in 2018. It is for the government to certify how successful it was and whether it met its expectations of the whole process. Reports suggest that while some of them quit unable to adjust themselves to the system, the others continue to be part of it.
The higher bureaucracy which takes part in the policy formulation of the Union government and their implementation is normally staffed by men and women who come though the civil service examination, except for the rare exceptions. The recruitment to the civil service meets the various goals of social justice, including reservations for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes. The whole idea of the system of reservation is not to provide jobs to people but to ensure that the sections of people who have been kept away from power and the decision-making process for thousands of years have their say. This affirmative action has the backing of the Indian Constitution; in fact, it is one of its hallmarks, and it has played its part in ensuring that India remained a functioning democracy which commands respect. From that perspective, massive recruitment of people to the top echelons of the Central bureaucracy ignoring the principle of reservations was an attempt to circumvent the Constitution. The government would have found it tough to defend the decision in a court of law.
The Opposition can take legitimate credit for forcing the government to do an about-turn on the subject. Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav had, from the very beginning, opposed it. The NDA constituent Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), too, voiced its concern. It is bit baffling that the BJP which has got a drubbing in the recent Lok Sabha elections partly owing to popular fear that it wanted to end reservations after winning 370 seats thought fit to take such a step. By stepping back, the party has done itself a service, even while conceding the Opposition some space.