The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice will review lateral entry in civil services during 2024-’25, PTI reported on Sunday.
This comes months after a political row broke out over the Union Public Service Commission’s advertisement to recruit individuals from the private sector for 45 positions of joint secretaries, directors, and deputy secretaries across 24 Union ministries through lateral entry on contract basis.
The advertisement was published on August 17.
Soon after, Opposition parties and the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), a Bharatiya Janata Party ally, objected to it, alleging that the decision undermined the quota system guaranteed by the Constitution.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had said that the decision to hire public servants through lateral entry was an “anti-national step”, claiming that the quotas for the marginalised communities were being “openly snatched”.
T he Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) said that the lateral entry to posts under the Union Public Service Commission was “completely wrong”.
Party president and Union minister Chirag Paswan said that his party was not in favour of such appointments.
On August 20, the Union Public Service Commission withdrew its advertisement.
This came hours after Union minister Jitendra Singh wrote a letter to the commission’s chairperson Preeti Sudan, urging her to cancel the recruitment.
The prime minister believes that the process of lateral entry must be aligned with the principles of equity and social justice enshrined in our Constitution, particularly concerning the provisions of reservation, Singh said in the letter.
While bureaucrats are recruited through the civil services exam, domain experts have been hired through lateral entry in the Union government since 2018 for specific roles.
So far, 63 lateral appointments have been made, with 35 coming from the private sector, reported PTI. Currently, 57 officers recruited through lateral entry hold positions in various ministries and departments.
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