Ethics in private and public relationships

The first principle

In private life we are allowed, and even expected, to be partial: we put our own children, friends and community first, and that partiality is part of what makes us good parents and loyal friends. A public role reverses this, because it gives a person power that belongs to everyone, and so it must be used as if the holder had no family or friends at all. The same loyalty that is a virtue at home becomes nepotism in office, and the whole subject of this note is managing that switch.

The core

• Partiality and impartiality. Private ethics allows special duties to those close to us. Public ethics demands equal treatment of every citizen, because the officer acts as a trustee of power, not its owner.
• Discretion held in trust. A private person spends their own money as they wish, but a public servant spends public money, so every choice must be explainable by rule and reason.
• Being seen to be fair. Public trust depends on what citizens can observe, so the public servant must avoid not only bias but also the appearance of bias.
• The private life of public figures becomes a public matter only when it bears on the public role, for example through assets, conflicts of interest or fitness for office.

Dimensions

• Family: the danger is nepotism in jobs, contracts and transfers. The detailed rules on declaring and stepping aside are in the note on conflict of interest.
• Friendship: gratitude to a friend who once helped becomes favouritism when repaid with a public decision, so dealings must stay at arm's length.
• Workplace: loyalty to colleagues is valuable until it becomes a cover for wrongdoing, harassment or incompetence.

In practice

• Gender and dignity at work. In Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997), the Supreme Court treated sexual harassment at work as a violation of the rights to equality, to practise a profession and to life with dignity, and laid down binding guidelines until Parliament legislated.
• The POSH Act, 2013. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, made those guidelines law. Every workplace with ten or more workers must set up an Internal Complaints Committee, presided over by a senior woman employee and including an external member from a body committed to women's causes. The district officer sets up a Local Committee for workplaces with fewer than ten workers, and for complaints against the employer.
• Service rules: rule 3C of the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964, bars government servants from sexual harassment of women at work.
• Privacy of public figures: in R. Rajagopal v State of Tamil Nadu (1994), the Supreme Court held that the acts of public officials in the discharge of their duties are not protected by the right to privacy. Puttaswamy (2017) then recognised privacy as a fundamental right, so scrutiny must still be confined to what bears on the public role.

Issues and way forward

• Committees exist on paper only, because there is no audit of whether they are formed and trained. In Aureliano Fernandes v State of Goa (2023), the Supreme Court found serious lapses and directed the Union and state governments to verify, in a fixed time, that every department and public body has a properly constituted committee. It also asked that committee details be published on each organisation's website and that members be trained.
• Complainants fear retaliation, because the accused is often senior to them. Interim relief such as transfer, and confidentiality, already exist in the Act and need to be enforced.
• Public figures claim privacy to hide conflicts, while the media sometimes invades privacy for gossip. A public interest test, applied in the visual below, separates the two.

Common confusions

• Private morality and public morality. Private morality allows special care for those close to us. Public morality forbids that care from shaping any use of public power.
• Loyalty and nepotism. Loyalty is faithfulness to a person or a cause. Nepotism is using public power for relatives, and it turns a private virtue into a public wrong.
• Public interest and what interests the public. Public interest is what citizens need to know to judge how power is used, while curiosity about a public figure's private life is not.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: private and public morality, partiality, impartiality, role morality, trusteeship, nepotism, favouritism, arm's length, Nolan principles, Vishaka guidelines, POSH Act, Internal Complaints Committee, Local Committee, dignity at work, public interest test.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Introduction lines:
  • The Vishaka judgement of 1997 treated sexual harassment as a violation of the fundamental rights to equality and dignity, and its guidelines became the POSH Act in 2013.
  • The Nolan Committee in 1995 named seven principles of public life, beginning with selflessness, which means acting solely in the public interest.
• Conclusion lines:
  • A public servant may love their family as anyone does, but must decide every file as if they had none.
  • Respect for colleagues and for privacy shows that a public role adds duties to private ethics; it does not replace it.