The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act provided for selection of some government employees by competitive exams rather than ties to politicians, and made it illegal to fire or demote some government officials for political reasons.

Following the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled job seeker, Congress passed the Pendleton Act in January of 1883. The act was steered through Congress by long-time reformer Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio.

The Pendleton Act provided that Federal Government jobs be awarded on the basis of merit and that Government employees be selected through competitive exams. The act also made it unlawful to fire or demote for political reasons employees who were covered by the law.

The Pendleton Act demanded the awarding government jobs by judgement of merit. However, the law offended machine politicians within the Republican party and did not prove to be enough for the party’s reformers.

The term was used particularly in politics of the United States, where the federal government operated on a spoils system until the Pendleton Act was passed in 1883 due to a civil service reform movement. Thereafter the spoils system was largely replaced by nonpartisan merit at the federal level of the United States.

Hence, Charles Cornwallis is known as ‘the Father of civil service in India’. Cornwallis introduced two divisions of the Indian Civil service—covenanted and uncovenanted. The covenanted civil service consisted of only Europeans (i.e., British personnel) occupying the higher posts in the government.

ADVERTISEMENTS: (3) Elitist public services to ensure merit, efficiency and above all loyalty of the senior civil servants to the Raj. (4) Political neutrality of meritorious civil servants, working anonymously and independently for the colonial power in the midst of a nationalist freedom struggle.

Functions of Civil Services

• Basis of Government: There can be no government without administrative machinery.
• Implementing Laws & Policies: Civil services are responsible for implementing laws and executing policies framed by the government.
• Policy Formulation: The civil service is chiefly responsible for policy formulation as well.

Main intent of civil services is to strength the administrative capacity to perform important government functions. These reforms raise the quality of services to the citizens that are essential to the advancement of supportable economic and social development.

Satyendranath Tagore(/ʃəˈtɛndrənɑːt tæˈɡɔːr/; Bengali: সত্যেন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; [ʃɔtɛndronatʰ ʈʰakur]) (1 June 1842 – 9 January 1923) was the first Indian to join the Indian Civil Service.

Indian Administrative Service

Ansar Shaikh

Parliament of India

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