What It Does: The commission is mandated by the Constitution for appointments to the services of the Union and All India Services.
Mission: It conducts the examination and sends its recommendation to the government for the recruitment of the personnel for all-India services and central services in group A and group B.
Size & Presence: the Commission consists of 9 to 11 members including the chairman and its located in New Delhi.
The origin of the Public Service Commission in India is found in the First Dispatch of the Government of India on the Indian Constitutional Reforms on the 5th March 1919 which referred to the need for setting up some permanent office charged with the regulation of service matters. This concept of a body intended to be charged primarily with the regulation of service matters found a somewhat more practical shape
in the Government of India Act, 1919. Section 96(C) of the Act provided for the establishment in India of a Public Service Commission which should “discharge, in regard to recruitment and control of the Public Services in India, such functions as may be assigned thereto by rules made by the Secretary of State in Council”.
After the passing of the Government of India Act, 1919, in spite of a prolonged correspondence among various levels on the functions and mechanisms of the body to be set up, no decision was taken on setting up the body. The subject was then referred to the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India (also known as Lee Commission). The Lee Commission, in their report in the year 1924, recommended that the statutory Public Service Commission contemplated by the Government of India Act, 1919 should be established without delay.
Subsequent to the provisions of Section 96(C) of the Government of India Act, 1919 and the strong recommendations made by the Lee Commission in 1924 for the early establishment of a Public Service Commission, it was on October 1, 1926, that The Public Service Commission was set up in India for the first time. It consisted of four Members in addition to the Chairman. Sir Ross Barker, a member of the Home Civil Service of the United Kingdom was the first Chairman of the Commission.
The functions of the Public Service Commission were not laid down in the Government of India Act, 1919, but were regulated by the Public Service Commission (Functions) Rules, 1926 framed under sub-section (2) of Section 96(C) of the Government of India Act, 1919. Further, the Government of India Act, 1935 envisaged a Public Service Commission for the Federation and a Provincial Public Service
Commission for each Province or group of Provinces. Therefore, in terms of the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935 and with its coming into effect on 1st April 1937, the Public Service Commission became the Federal Public Service Commission.
With the inauguration of the Constitution of India on January 26, 1950, the Federal Public Service Commission came to be known as the Union Public Service Commission, and the Chairman and Members of the Federal Public Service Commission became Chairman and Members of the Union Public Service Commission by virtue of Clause (1) of Article 378 of the Constitution.
The selection process includes three stages-
The final merit is prepared on the basis of marks obtained in the main examination and Interview.