The Public Services
During the early years of the twentieth century Indians continued to agitate for a greater share in the Public Services. In September, 1912, a Royal Commission on the Public Services in India was appointed, with Lord Islington as Chairman. Among the members of the Commission were the late Mr. G.K. Gokhale, Lord Ronaldshay (later Lord Zetland), Sir Valentine Chirol, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Herbert Fisher, later Warden of New College, Oxford, and Sir ‘Abdur Rahim. Owing to the outbreak of the First World War, the publication of this Commission’s report was deferred till 1917. It recommended that besides the recruitment of Indians to the I.C.S. through the London examination, 25 per cent of the posts in the Superior Civil Service should be filled from among Indians partly by direct recruitment and partly by promotion from the lower service. To make the working of this scheme possible, it also recommended the holding of an examination in India for the recruitment of civilians, thus conceding to the Indians in a changed form what they had been demanding for more than half a century.
The authors of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report took a more liberal and sympathetic view than the Islington Commission on the question of Indianising the Indian Civil Service. They proposed that (1) ” 33 per cent of the superior posts should be recruited for in India, and that this percentage should be increased by l.5 per cent annually ” until the situation was revised by a Commission; (2) that all racial distinctions in the matter of appointments should be abolished; and (3) that ” for all the Public Services, for which there is recruitment in England open to Europeans and Indians alike, there must be a system of appointment in India “. For about four years, the principle laid down in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report was followed in the matter of recruiting Indians. But the members of the Superior Services became rather perturbed at the growing Indianisation of the Services. Accordingly, pursuant to the recommendation of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, the Secretary of State in Council introduced a scheme under which All-India officers, selected for appointment before I st January, 1920, and not permanently employed under the Government of India, were allowed to retire, before the completion of the normal period of service, on a pension proportionate to their length of service.
But certain difficulties regarding the Services continued, for the solution of which a Royal Commission was appointed in June, 1923, with Lord Lee of Fareham as its Chairman. The Lee Commission submitted its report in 1924 and most of its recommendations were accepted and put into force by the Government. The Commission recommended that All-India officers of the Indian Civil Service, the Indian Police Service, the Irrigation Branch of the Service of Engineers and the Indian Forest Service should continue to be appointed and controlled by the Secretary of State in Council, while the services in the Transferred departments should be controlled by Provincial Governments, excepting the Indian Medical Service, for which each Province was to appoint in its civil medical department a certain number of officers lent by the Medical Department of the Army in India. As regards Indiansiation of Services which were still to be controlled by the Secretary of State, the Commission recommended that 20 per cent of the officers should be recruited by promotion from Provincial Civil Services, and of the remaining 80 per cent half should be British and half Indian. It calculated that by following this principle there would be in 1939 equal numbers of Europeans and Indians in the Superior Civil Service posts. But this calculation was wrong, and the Simon Commission pointed out that the number of Indians in Superior Civil Service posts was likely to be 643 as against 715 Europeans on Ist January, 1939. As provided by the Government of India Act, 1919, the Lee Commission recommended the immediate establishment of a Public Service Commission. Such a Commission, composed of five whole-time members, was appointed in 1925. Further, after 1922 certain officers in the Indian Civil Service were recruited on the result of a competitive examination held every year in India.
Part X of the Government of India Act, 1935, defined the rights and status of the civil and military officers in the Provinces and the proposed Federation and guaranteed their existing privileges regarding pay, promotion, leave, pension, etc. It also provided for the establishment of a Federal Public Service Commission and Provincial Public Service Commissions; but two or more Provinces might “agree that one Commission shall serve a group or that all the Provinces shall use one Commission”. The functions of the Commissions were purely advisory. They could only recommend names, which the Ministers, at least in some cases, might accept or reject.
The Judiciary
The year 1861 saw the establishment of High Courts in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, in which were amalgamated the previously existing Supreme Courts and Sadar Courts. At least one-third of the judges of the High courts were to be recruited from Her Majesty’s Civil Service in India, another one third from among barristers of England or advocates of Scotland, and the rest might be recruited from among the pleaders of the High courts or the officers of the subordinate judiciary. The Chief Justices of the High Courts were to be appointed from among the barristers of England or advocates of Scotland. On the strength of the Indian High Courts Act of 1911, High Courts were established at Patna, Lahore and Rangoon. The elimination of the Civilian element from the bench had been demanded by Indian public opinion. But the arrangement provided by the Government of India Act, 1935, did not satisfy this demand. It abolished the old proportional arrangement and laid down that judges would be appointed, according to convenience, from these three classes but “not necessarily in the old proportion” and thus held out greater advantages in this respect for members of the Indian Civil Service than what existed before. Further, the old rule of appointing the Chief Justices exclusively from among barristers or advocates was modified to the extent that they now might be recruited either from among the pleaders of High courts or from among the officers of the Indian Civil Service.
Another change in the judiciary was necessitated by the proposed Federaration. Sections 200 and 203 of the Government of India Act, 1935, provided for the creation of a Federal Court, which was normally to be located at Delhi and was to consist of a Chief justice and not more than six puisne judges. The judges were to be appointed by the Crown and were to hold office till the age of sixty-five. The Federal Court was to have original jurisdiction in cases of constitutional disputes between one Province and another, between a Province and a federated State, and between a Province and the Federal authorities. It would also hear appeals from the High Courts provided the latter certified that the cases related to a fundamental question of law regarding the interpretation of the Government of India Act or any Order in Council made under it. The Federal Court was constituted on October 1, 1937.
