Power to make regulations as to conditions of service of members and staff of the Commission

Article 318, Constitution of India 1950

In the case of the Union Commission or a Joint Commission, the President and, in the case of a State Commission, the Governor or Rajpramukh of the State may by regulations—

(a) determine the number of members of the Commission and their conditions of service; and

(b) make provision with respect to the number of members of the staff of the Commission and their conditions of service:

⁠Provided that the conditions of service of a member of a Public Service Commission shall not be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment.

Draft Article 285B (Article 318 of Constitution of India 1950) was absent in the Draft Constitution 1948. The Drafting Committee Chairman introduced this Draft Article on 22 August 1949.

The Draft Article empowered the President to regulate the number of members of the Union and joint Service Commissions. This included the President’s power to determine the conditions of service for such members. The Governor would have the same powers over the members of a State Commission.

A member proposed that the President or the Governor should make provisions after consulting the Service Commission Chairman.

Another member proposed that the appointment of the members should be made by the Service Commission Chairman. He also specified how many members should be appointed and empowered the Commission to determine the conditions of service of the members instead of the President or Governor.

A third member also moved multiple amendments to the Draft Article – one of which was to replace ‘President’ and ‘Governor’ in the Draft Article to ‘Parliament or State Legislatures’.

All the amendments to the Draft Article were either withdrawn or rejected by the Assembly. The Draft Article was adopted without any amendment, on the same day.