Indian Civil Service
[citation needed] Successful candidates underwent one or two years of probation in the United Kingdom, according to whether they had taken the London or the Indian examination.
By 1920, there were five methods of entry into the higher civil service: firstly, the open competitive examinations in London; secondly, separate competitive examinations in India; thirdly, nomination in India to satisfy provincial and communal representation; fourthly, promotion from the Provincial Civil Service and lastly, appointments from the bar (one-fourth of the posts in the ICS were to be filled from the bar).
[14] Queen Victoria had suggested that the civil servants in India should have an official dress uniform, as did their counterparts in the Colonial Service.
[15] The only civilians allowed a dress uniform by regulations were those who had distinct duties of a political kind to perform, and who are thereby brought into frequent and direct personal contact with native princes.
[15] This uniform included a blue coat with gold embroidery, a black velvet lining, collar and cuffs, blue cloth trousers with gold and lace two inches wide, a beaver cocked hat with black silk cockade and ostrich feathers, and a sword.
[23] In 1922, Indian candidates were permitted to sit for the ICS examinations in Delhi; in 1924, the Lee Commission, chaired by Arthur Lee, 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham (which eventually led to the foundation of the Federal Public Service Commission and Provincial Public Service Commission under the Government of India Act 1935) made several recommendations: ICS officers should receive increased and more comprehensive levels of compensation, future batches of ICS officers should be composed of 40% Europeans and 40% Indians with the remaining 20% of appointments to be filled by direct promotion of Indians from the Provincial Civil Services (PCS), and the examinations in Delhi and London were to produce an equal number of ICS probationers.
The suppression of civil disobedience by the British after 1934 temporarily increased the power of the revenue agents, but after 1937 they were forced by the new Congress-controlled provincial governments to hand back confiscated land.
The outbreak of the Second World War strengthened them again, but in the face of the Quit India movement the revenue collectors had to rely on military force, and by 1946–47 direct British control was rapidly disappearing in much of the countryside.
Examinations continued to be held in Delhi for Indian candidates until 1943, when the last seven ICS officers (seven examinees, two nominated) joined.
By this time, the British government felt it could no longer rely unambiguously on the complete loyalty of its Indian officers.
[26] A few British ex-ICS officers stayed on over the ensuing quarter-century, notably those who had selected the "judicial side" of the ICS.
The last British former ICS officer from the "judicial side" still serving in the subcontinent, Justice Donald Falshaw (ICS 1928), retired as Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court (now the Punjab and Haryana High Court) in May 1966,[27][28] receiving a knighthood in the British 1967 New Year Honours upon his return to Britain.
J. P. L. Gwynn (ICS 1939), the last former ICS officer holding British nationality and the last to serve in an executive capacity under the Indian government, ended his Indian service in 1968 as Second Member of the Board of Revenue, but continued to serve in the British Home Civil Service until his final retirement in 1976.
Upon his retirement on 18 March 1972 from the Allahabad High Court as its most senior puisne judge, Broome was the last former ICS officer of European origin serving in India.
He was a retired Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh and was the oldest former ICS officer on record at the time of his death.
[35] As Prime Minister, Nehru retained the organisation and its top people, albeit with a change of title to the "Indian Administrative Service".
Nehru appointed long-time ICS officials Chintaman Deshmukh as his Finance Minister, and K. P. S. Menon as his Foreign Secretary.
Sardar Patel appreciated their role in keeping India united after partition, and noted in Parliament that without them, the country would have collapsed.
