UPSC at 100: A Century of Impartiality and Fault Lines

Can UPSC remain the institution that not only selects India’s administrators but embodies the values those administrators are meant to serve?

By P SESH KUMAR

NEW DELHI, September 19, 2025 — As the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) completes its centenary, it stands as one of the few institutions in India that still commands respect across regions, communities, and political divides. Its reputation rests on impartiality, transparency, and its ability to conduct one of the toughest examinations in the world.

Yet, behind this aura of invincibility lie fissures—occasional leaks, questions about the integrity of members, inter-member frictions, and a stubborn refusal to open itself to external evaluation.

The Test of Impartiality

From its inception under Articles 315–323 of the Constitution, UPSC was designed to be insulated from political and administrative pressures. The Chairman enjoys the rank and status of a Supreme Court Judge, while Members are equated with High Court Judges.

Removal safeguards under Article 317 mirror judicial impeachment processes. This constitutional architecture was meant to guarantee that India’s administrators would be chosen by an institution as independent as the higher judiciary.

By and large, that promise has held. Year after year, lakhs of aspirants walk into exam halls across the country with the belief that they are competing on equal terms. That belief—rare in India’s public institutions—remains UPSC’s greatest achievement. Its impartiality has allowed the exam to remain the ultimate symbol of merit-based mobility in the republic.

Managing the All-India Scale

No other test matches the scale and complexity of the Civil Services Examination. Only the NEET examination for admission into undergraduate medical course could come anywhere near the Civil services examination in terms of scale, geographical spread and numbers.

It is conducted across hundreds of centres, simultaneously from Nagaland to Gujarat, and covers candidates of every background. Question papers must reach remote towns at the same time, invigilators must be trusted, and results must withstand judicial scrutiny.

In a country where university examinations regularly stumble on leaks and delays, UPSC’s clockwork efficiency has preserved its aura of credibility.

Staying Ahead of the Coaching Industry

The rise of the private coaching bazaar—stretching from Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar to Patna, Jaipur, and now even online platforms—posed a serious challenge. Coaching factories (much like the infamous Kota factories for NEET/JEE) train aspirants to crack patterns rather than understand ideas. UPSC has responded with constant refinements in question design: ethics papers that probe values, essay topics demanding originality, and general studies questions that reward conceptual clarity over rote recall.

Unpredictability is its weapon against predictability-driven coaching. For aspirants, this unpredictability can be maddening; for UPSC, it is the only way to preserve integrity.

Fault Lines: Paper Leaks and Member Integrity

Despite its near-legendary secrecy, UPSC has occasionally faced whispers of question paper leaks. Though rare compared to state-level boards, even a single episode dents public confidence. UPSC has often argued that the leaks emanated from external vendors or were exaggerated. But in the age of social media, perception itself can be damaging.

Equally, questions about the integrity of individual members have occasionally surfaced, leading to quiet resignations or premature exits. For an institution whose members enjoy the constitutional status of High Court or Supreme Court judges, even a hint of impropriety can be toxic.

Add to this the inevitable ego clashes among 10–12 members from diverse backgrounds—civil servants, academics, military officers—and the Commission sometimes reveals its human side: collegial, but not always harmonious.

Who Judges the Judge?

Here lies UPSC’s paradox. It is constitutionally insulated from executive and legislative interference, and its reports under Article 323 are tabled in Parliament. But these reports—like the 73rd Annual Report (2022–23)—are statistical and self-laudatory, not evaluative.

They detail applications, selections, and schedules, but omit candid discussion of exam security incidents, fairness analytics, or grievance outcomes. The Rajya Sabha Standing Committee’s 2023 review of recruitment processes, too, focused narrowly on compressing exam timelines rather than probing systemic issues such as coaching distortion, bias testing, or integrity safeguards.

This leaves a yawning gap. Independence is preserved, but accountability through external validation is absent. Unlike the UK’s Civil Service Commission, which publishes audit ratings of recruitment processes, or Singapore’s Public Service Division, which deploys psychometric evaluations and structured behavioural interviews, UPSC has never invited an external peer review of its methods.

The Feasible Path: Peer Review, Not Third-Party Evaluation

To demand an “independent third-party evaluation” of UPSC—or worse, the higher judiciary—would be both practically impossible and constitutionally inappropriate. The whole point of Articles 315–323, like Article 148 for the CAG or Articles 124–147 for the judiciary, is to protect these institutions from executive or legislative interference.

Subjecting them to evaluation by a government ministry or parliamentary panel could fatally compromise their independence.

But there is a middle path: international peer review.

The precedent exists. In 2012, the CAG of India voluntarily subjected itself to a peer review led by other Supreme Audit Institution (Australia and others). That exercise produced candid, constructive feedback without undermining CAG’s autonomy.

The key was that it was voluntary, invited, and done by equals—not overseers. It is a different matter that this remained a solitary experiment with successive CAGs thereafter abandoning the path.

UPSC could, however, adopt the same model: invite peer reviews by global recruitment commissions—say, the UK Civil Service Commission, Canada’s Public Service Commission, or Singapore’s Public Service Division.

The exercise could evaluate question design, exam cycle efficiency, fairness checks, and candidate experience. The higher judiciary could, cautiously, explore similar reviews of court administration and backlog management, not of judgments.

Lessons and the Road Ahead

The centenary year offers UPSC a chance to embrace the paradox of modern governance: independence must coexist with verifiable accountability. This does not mean surrendering autonomy to the executive. It means voluntarily inviting peers to hold up a mirror.

UPSC’s Annual Reports should evolve into balanced scorecards, with independent attestations, disclosures of adverse incidents, and year-on-year improvements in cycle time, grievance redressal, and fairness analytics. Parliament, instead of merely noting timelines, should encourage structured peer reviews and commission technical studies on exam validity and coaching distortions.

For India, the larger lesson is this: constitutional authorities—UPSC, CAG, the higher judiciary—must all find ways to prove their credibility without diluting their independence. In the 20th century, prestige was enough. In the 21st, prestige must be backed by evidence of integrity and impact.

UPSC at 100 is still India’s gold standard. It has by and large preserved impartiality, mastered logistics, and kept the flame of meritocracy alive. But cracks—paper leaks, coaching distortions, opaque reporting—cannot be wished away. The Commission can no longer rely solely on its aura; it must actively demonstrate its integrity.

The solution is not intrusive oversight but peer-reviewed transparency. If the first century was about building credibility, the next must be about deepening trust through openness, candour, and voluntary evaluation. Only then will UPSC remain the institution that not only selects India’s administrators but embodies the values those administrators are meant to serve.

(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)

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