UPSC Completes 100 Years of Merit-Based Recruitment

The correct answer is 1926. India’s first Public Service Commission was constituted on 1 October 1926 as an advisory body, and the Commission therefore dates its own history from that year and completes a hundred years on 1 October 2026. Option A, 1919, is the year of the Government of India Act that merely provided for such a Commission; it created the legal opening, not the body itself. Option B, 1924, is the year the Lee Commission recommended that a statutory Public Service Commission be established at once, which is again a recommendation and not the establishment. Option D, 1935, is the year of the Government of India Act that transferred the power of appointment to the Governor-General and provided for a Federal Public Service Commission with Provincial Commissions, a later stage in the same story. Only 1926 marks the actual constitution of the body.

The correct answer is Part XIV, Articles 315 to 323. Dr B. R. Ambedkar moved these draft articles in the Constituent Assembly in 1949, and they became the constitutional charter of the Public Service Commissions. Article 315 provides for a Commission for the Union and one for each State, Article 316 leaves the appointment of the chairman and members to the President, Article 317 allows removal only by the President after an inquiry by the Supreme Court, Article 320 lists the functions, and Article 322 charges the expenses on the Consolidated Fund of India. Option A, Part XII with Articles 264 to 300, covers finance, property and contracts. Option B, Part XIII with Articles 301 to 307, covers trade, commerce and intercourse within India. Option D, Part XV with Articles 324 to 329, covers elections and the Election Commission, not the service commissions.

The correct answer is Rose Millian Bathew Kharbuli, who headed the Commission in 1992 and was the first woman to do so. Option A, Kiran Bedi, is linked to the Commission in a different way: she was the first woman it selected for the Indian Police Service, in 1972, and was the only woman among the vacancies filled that year, but she never chaired the body. Option C, Pratibha Devisingh Patil, was the President who inaugurated the Commission’s Foundation Day Lecture series on governance and public service, and she is remembered as the first woman President of India, not as a UPSC chairperson. Option D, Suman Sharma, is one of the eight Members serving under the present Chairman, Dr Ajay Kumar, three of whom are women, but she is a Member and not the first woman head.