After the reservation controversy in UPSC Lateral Entry Recruitment 2024, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has canceled the recruitment. UPSC has issued a notice on its official website informing about this. Due to the debate over lateral entry in UPSC, the central government had ordered a ban on the advertisement of lateral entry. In this regard, the Personnel Minister has written a letter to the UPSC Chairman.
Union Personnel Minister Jitendra Singh had written a letter to the UPSC Chairman asking him to stop the advertisement of direct recruitment on the instructions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Personnel Minister had said in the letter that the government has taken this decision as part of a comprehensive re-evaluation of lateral entry. This letter states that most of the lateral entries were made before 2014 and were done at an adhoc level. The Prime Minister believes that lateral entry should be in accordance with the principles of equality and social justice enshrined in our Constitution, especially there should be no tampering with the provisions of reservation.
Applications were invited for 45 vacant posts
On August 17, 2024, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) had invited applications for 45 vacant posts of Joint Secretary, Director and Deputy Secretary through lateral entry. Those working in non-government departments could also apply for these posts. People were angry with this decision of UPSC, people said that seeking applications for these posts in this way would violate the rights of the people of the reserved category. Let us tell you that applications for these posts were sought on the official website.
This demand was made to the chairman of UPSC
Taking cognizance of this matter, Dr. Jitendra Singh (Union Minister of State for Personnel) had written a letter to UPSC Chairman Preeti Sudan regarding the applications sought by UPSC through lateral entry. In this letter, a demand was made to withdraw the UPSC lateral entry notification and cancel it with immediate effect. Now this notification has been removed from the official website of UPSC.
What was written in the letter given to the Chairman of UPSC?
In a letter written to Preeti Sudan, Dr. Jitendra Singh (Union Minister of State for Personnel) had written that the sole purpose of providing reservation in employment for Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to free the socially backward class people from the injustice done to them for years and to bring equality in the society. Writing further in his letter, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the posts for which the notification was issued for lateral entry are specialized and high-level posts in which there is no provision for reservation. Keeping in mind PM Modi’s objective of social equality, it is necessary to analyze it and make improvements. ‘Therefore, I appeal to UPSC to cancel the notification issued for lateral entry with immediate effect.’
Notice of cancellation of lateral entry in UPSC
Amidst the demand to cancel the notification seeking applications through lateral entry in UPSC, UPSC has issued an official notice and said to withdraw and cancel the notification of application for all 45 vacant posts of Joint Secretary, Director and Deputy Secretary.
What is lateral entry?
The facility of lateral entry is for those people who are already working in a department and want to upgrade their career, for this the government has given some facilities. If the interested candidates fulfill all the eligibility criteria for recruitment through lateral entry, then some rules are relaxed by the government.
If we talk about the lateral system, then through UPSC lateral entry, candidates are directly appointed to those posts on which IAS rank officers are posted. That is, in this system, candidates are directly appointed to the posts of Deputy Secretary i.e. Joint Secretary and Director/Deputy Secretary in various ministries, departments and organizations. In this, experts from different sectors from the private sector are given jobs on these posts in the government. In this system, UPSC does not participate in the Civil Services Examination and experts from the private sector are appointed to these posts through interview without any exam.
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)