Behind the Special Rules order: a Commissioner in Travancore, an Ordinance in Travancore-Cochin, and a Commission that grew to eighteen

Background

Behind the new order giving the Public Service Commission thirty days to advise on Special Rules lies a body older than the State. Travancore appointed a single Public Service Commissioner for direct recruitment, and G D Nokes took that office first on 14 June 1936. Cochin set up a Staff Selection Board the same year for recruitment to lower posts, and a three-member Cochin Public Service Commission followed in 1947 under an Act of the State Legislature. When the two States integrated, the Travancore-Cochin Public Service Commission was formed on 1 July 1949 by an Ordinance, with three members including the Chairman. It carried on under constitutional provisions after the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950, and became the Kerala Public Service Commission when Kerala was formed on 1 November 1956. Membership rose from five in 1959 to seven in 1971, nine in 1982, thirteen in 1983 and eighteen in 2005.