The unfolding controversies surrounding the 2025-26 Karnataka Public Service Commission recruitments and calls to abolish the commission in the state Assembly point to a deeper institutional failure. Karnataka’s experience is not an aberration. It’s a warning to others.
The credibility of a modern State rests on who runs the machinery of governance once the ballots are counted. Democracies depend on professional civil services to ensure continuity, neutrality and competence. That professionalism, in turn, depends on how recruitment is conducted. When recruitment systems function fairly, governance gains legitimacy. When they falter, the consequences extend far beyond a single examination—eroding public trust in the State itself.
To safeguard merit, the Constitution created public service commissions (PSCs) as independent authorities. Their purpose was simple yet profound: to insulate recruitment from political influence and ensure that merit—not patronage—determines entry into public service.
Yet, Karnataka’s experience raises a troubling question: what happens when the guardians of merit themselves repeatedly face allegations of manipulation and political influence?
The disputes over the 2024-25 Karnataka Administrative Service (KAS) gazetted probationers and 2025 engineering recruitments are not isolated. Recruitment controversies in Karnataka have surfaced repeatedly—in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2011. Each episode follows a familiar cycle: allegations emerge, public outrage escalates, courts intervene, reform committees are constituted, procedural safeguards are introduced and, with time, the momentum dissipates. Structural weaknesses remain and the cycle repeats.
This recurring pattern reveals a deeper paradox embedded in the design of PSCs. Constitutional autonomy shields these bodies from external interference. But autonomy alone does not guarantee integrity. The independence that protects them from pressure also shields them from scrutiny. Without strong internal accountability, autonomy risks mutating into institutional impunity.
The controversy surrounding the 2011 KAS recruitment illustrates this tension vividly. Investigations revealed irregularities serious enough to undermine the integrity of the entire process. The state cancelled the selection in 2013. The dispute culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision in Avinash C (2018), which affirmed a principle of enduring constitutional importance: when a recruitment process is fundamentally tainted, the state is justified in annulling the entire selection. The court clarified it’s not always necessary to segregate tainted and untainted candidates when the process itself stands vitiated, placing the integrity of public employment above individual claims.
Yet the institutional story did not end there. Legislative intervention followed in the form of the Karnataka Civil Services (Validation of Selection and Appointment of 2011 batch Gazetted Probationers) Act, 2022, which retrospectively regularised the very recruitment that had earlier been cancelled on grounds of systemic irregularity. This episode exposes a deeper constitutional tension: should public employment prioritise the integrity of process, or accommodate the interests of beneficiaries of flawed processes?
Recruitment outcomes often generate politically-mobilised constituencies. Once selected, beneficiaries acquire strong incentives to preserve the outcome. Controversies then shift from questions of institutional integrity to arenas of political negotiation, where administrative correctness competes with pressures to protect mass employment outcomes. Over time, unsuccessful candidates disperse, and prolonged litigation erodes the practical capacity to challenge outcomes. Delay becomes a silent instrument of resolution.
Reform efforts have not been absent. A committee chaired by former UPSC chairman P C Hota submitted its report in 2013 recommending procedural safeguards, structured evaluation systems and greater transparency. Some of these measures were implemented. But the most consequential reform—creating a transparent and independent mechanism for appointing commission members —remained unrealised.
This omission lies at the heart of the problem. Recruitment procedures can be endlessly modernised with technology, surveillance and standardised evaluation. But if those who govern the recruitment institution are themselves appointed without rigorous and transparent scrutiny, procedural reform can’t ensure institutional integrity.
Comparative experience reinforces this lesson. In South Africa, recruitment oversight involves legislative participation. Kenya and Uganda require legislative approval for appointments.
India’s constitutional design, by contrast, is strikingly minimal on appointments. Under Article 316, the Governor appoints members of state PSCs, with only a limited eligibility condition that roughly half must have ten years of government experience. In practice, this power is exercised on the aid and advice of the council of ministers, often concentrated in the discretion of the chief minister. The result is a process that is neither collective nor transparent, but effectively executive-driven.
In contrast, Article 317 creates a highly stringent removal mechanism. A member can be removed only by the President after an inquiry by the Supreme Court. Judicial precedents in Ram Ashray Yadav (2000) and Mehar Singh Saini (2010) have consistently held that ‘misbehaviour’ must be established through specific, individual acts and cannot be inferred from general institutional failure. This sets an exceptionally high threshold for removal.
The consequence is a structural imbalance. Entry into the commission is relatively unconstrained; but exit is extraordinarily difficult. The removal process involves a multi-stage chain from the state Cabinet to the Union executive, the President and ultimately the Supreme Court. While this design protects independence, it often renders accountability slow and uncertain. In practice, investigations stretch across years and by the time proceedings mature, tenure may itself expire. The Constitution thus provides a strong shield against arbitrary removal—but a weak mechanism for timely accountability.
If the exit gate is so heavily guarded, the entry gate cannot remain porous.
The primary reform must therefore focus on how members of PSCs are selected. There already are some workable templates. The Central Vigilance Commission, Central Information Commission, Lokpal and the CBI have some appointments through multi-member committees involving the government, the opposition and, in some cases, the judiciary. The Lokpal framework goes further by incorporating a ‘double-sieve’ mechanism: a statutory search committee prepares a pool of eligible candidates, from which a selection committee makes the final choice.
PSCs require a similar architecture. A robust model would involve an independent search committee empowered to invite applications, define eligibility criteria and prepare a merit-based shortlist. This should be followed by a plural selection committee comprising representatives of the government, Opposition and constitutional authorities. As a further safeguard, the shortlisted names should be placed before the legislature for a defined period to enable public scrutiny before formal appointment by the governor. Such a ‘three-sieve’ mechanism would transform appointments from executive discretion into a transparent, accountable process.
At the same time, the exit gate must be made workable. Without altering the constitutional framework of Article 317, meaningful improvements are possible. Statutory timelines can be prescribed for each stage of the removal process to prevent delay from defeating accountability. The Supreme Court can prioritise presidential references to ensure time-bound inquiries. Clear norms governing interim suspension can prevent members facing serious allegations from continuing in office while proceedings are pending. Finally, the evidentiary process can be streamlined so that state-level investigations feed directly into the judicial inquiry, reducing duplication and delay.
These reforms do not weaken independence; they restore balance. They ensure that constitutional protection does not become constitutional impunity.
Karnataka’s 2025 decision to constitute a search committee for KPSC appointments is therefore a welcome step—but an incomplete one. If such a body remains dominated by the executive, it risks becoming a formal exercise rather than a substantive reform. What is required is not merely a committee, but a credible process.
PSCs are the principal gatekeepers of a state’s administrative machinery. Failures in recruitment institutions cascade through the entire system of governance. The quality of administration depends on the quality of recruitment, and the quality of recruitment depends on the integrity of those who oversee it.
The unfinished reform of public recruitment is therefore not merely administrative—it’s constitutional. If removal is designed to be difficult, selection must be made rigorous. We cannot afford a system that is easy to enter through patronage but nearly impossible to exit through accountability.
The legitimacy of public office begins with the legitimacy of recruitment. And the legitimacy of recruitment begins with those who guard its gates.
Sanjiv Kumar | Member, Central Administrative Tribunal and retired IAS officer
(Views are personal)