All-India Services | Indian Constitution Download PDF
It has been pointed out earlier that besides persons serving under the Union and the States, there will be certain services ‘common to the Union and the States’. These are called ‘All-India Services’, of which the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service are the existing examples [Art. 312(2)]. But the Constitution gives the power to create additional All-India Services.1 If the Council of States declares by a resolution supported by not less than two- thirds of the members present and voting that it is necessary or expedient in the national interests so to do, Parliament may be law provide for the creation of one or more all-India services common to the Union and the States and regulate the recruitment, and the conditions of service of persons appointed, to any such service [Art. 312(1)].’
As explained by Dr. Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly, the object behind this provision for All-India Services is to impart a greater cohesion to the federal system and greater efficiency to the administration in both the Union and the States:
“The dual policy which is inherent in a federal system is followed in all federations by a dual service. In all Federations, there is a Federal Civil Service and a State Civil Service. The Indian Federation, though a dual polity, will have a dual service, but with one exception. It is recognised that in every country there are certain parts in its administrative set-up which might be called strategic from the point of view of maintaining the standard of administration… There can be no doubt that the standard of administration depends upon the calibre of the civil servants who are appointed to these strategic posts… The Constitution provides that without depriving the States of their right to form their own civil services there shall be an all-India Service, recruited on an all-India basis with common qualifications, with uniform scale of pay and members of which alone could be appointed to these strategic posts throughout the Union.”