Revision summary
Public life needs selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Three working tests are selflessness in relief, integrity in contracts, and accountability in audit and speaking orders. A public servant is anyone entrusted with public power and pay for a public duty. The expected role is trustee: implement law, advise frankly, refuse the illegal, and serve the person without a patron. Conduct Rules and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 give that role a legal edge.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Public office is a trust, not a private shop. Part (a) names the standards that make that trust visible. Part (b) names the person who holds the trust and the work that person is hired to do.
Body
(a) Basic principles of public life
- Public life is the space of government, parties, local bodies, and any office that spends other people’s money or power.
- The Committee on Standards in Public Life (the Nolan Committee, United Kingdom, 1995) listed seven principles that Indian training still uses: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership.
- Selflessness means decisions serve the public, not the officer’s family, caste, or party fund.
- Integrity means the officer is not for sale: no gift, land, or post-retirement job is allowed to buy a file.
- Objectivity means merit, evidence, and the rule, not a phone call from a patron.
- Accountability means the officer can be asked why, in a court, a legislature, or an audit.
- Openness means reasons are shared unless secrecy is strictly needed for security or privacy.
- Honesty means the books, the affidavit, and the speaking order tell the truth.
- Leadership means seniors live the same rules they print on the wall.
- Indian public life also rests on the Constitution: equality before law (Article 14), equal protection, and the oath to uphold the Constitution, not a person.
- The Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964 and the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968 turn these values into daily bans on gifts, political canvassing, and conduct unbecoming.
Three principles, illustrated
- Selflessness. A District Magistrate who allots flood relief by damage list, not by the ruling party’s booth, is practising selflessness. The opposite is a minister who parks a highway spur at a relative’s land.
- Integrity. E. Sreedharan building the Konkan Railway and Delhi Metro on time, without a personal cut in contracts, is integrity in a public project. A coal-block or 2G-style allocation that treats a licence as a gift fails the same test.
- Accountability. The Comptroller and Auditor General’s reports, a Public Accounts Committee hearing, and a District Magistrate’s speaking order on a demolition are accountability. A file that never records who signed is the failure of that principle.
- Openness, as a supporting example, is a published ration queue and a Right to Information reply that does not hide a tender behind a false “secret” stamp.
(b) Public servant and expected role
- A public servant is a person paid from the public purse, or otherwise entrusted with public power, to perform a lawful function for the people, not for a private master.
- The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 defines a public servant widely: government employees, judges, and many who perform a public duty, so that the label follows the power, not only the gazette.
- The expected role is trustee, not owner. The desk, the stamp, and the gun belong to the Republic.
- The role is to implement law and lawful policy with impartiality, courtesy, and speed, especially for the person who has no advocate in the corridor.
- The role is to advise ministers frankly, then carry out a lawful decision, and to refuse an illegal oral order in writing.
- The role is to protect the weak: a migrant at a police station, a widow at a pension counter, a child out of school.
- The role is to keep accounts clean and to face audit without a second set of books.
- The role is representative of the Constitution in the field: Article 14 fairness, Article 21 dignity, and Article 51A’s spirit of harmony in daily dealing.
- Example: a station house officer who registers a poor complainant’s FIR without a bribe is doing the expected role. A collector who hides in the bungalow during a riot is not.
- Example: T. N. Seshan as Chief Election Commissioner treating every party as equal before the Model Code showed the servant as referee, not as a faction worker.
- The expected role therefore joins competence with character: know the rule, apply it without fear or favour, and leave the office poorer in gifts than when one entered.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PL[Public life] --> NOL[Nolan seven principles] NOL --> THREE[Selflessness integrity accountability] PS[Public servant] --> TRUST[Trustee of public power] TRUST --> ROLE[Impartial lawful service] ROLE --> CIT[Citizen and Constitution]
Conclusion
Public life stands on Nolan’s seven duties and on the Constitution’s equality. A public servant is a trustee of public power. The expected role is lawful, impartial, accountable service to the citizen, illustrated whenever a file is decided on merit and not on kinship.
Quick related
Students also ask
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"In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they do not have the first, the other two will kill you." - Warren Buffett What do you understand by this statement in the present-day scenario? Explain.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2018 · Q3(b)). View answer →
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Are Nolan principles Indian law?
They are not a Union statute. They are a widely taught map of public-life ethics; Indian binding force comes from the Constitution, Conduct Rules and anti-corruption law.
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Is only a gazetted officer a public servant?
No. The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 looks at public duty and power, not only at gazetted rank.
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