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His father was Hiralal Sibal, long-time Advocate General of Punjab (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hira_Lal_Sibal)

Must have been a good father: his 4 sons include 2 IAS officers, 1 IFS officer (Former Foreign Secy Kanwal Sibal) and Kapil Sibal (Sr. Adv, and who by his own admission had gotten into the IAS)
upsc exam before 1980s was an organised mess

most IFS officers post 1947 until about 1965 were sons of erstwhile maharajas

all ICS officers became IAS officers, thus they carried on the tradition of working for their political masters

the modern craze for UPSC actually started sometime in early 1990s, before that it was just another exam which only the well connected or well heeled sat for
True, I think the craze started from 1990, but the trend of IITians and DU BA(Hons.) people focussing on UPSC started somewhere in 1980s, a number of senior officers right now are examples - probably those who did not want to go into engineering/foreign masters were pushed into UPSC as they were bright enough to crack IIT

Then from the 1990s-2000s the population boom took care that it became a craze
one can actually accurately point out the date of the UPSC boom - the start of Mandal implementation
just like you get a couple of good professors at NLUs you do get a few good officers through UPSC

have a look at what PK thinks about higher bureaucracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uq0y71yr6A
not many of the gen Z would have heard of Natwar Singh, he resigned as an IFS officer about 40 years ago (let us forget about his political journey) and is emblematic of the problems in recruitment of central deputation bureaucrats until late 1970s. He came from the ashraf class, went to Mayo, Scindia, St Stephens and Cambridge and then was tapped on the shoulder to join the service by Nehru.

If you look at the secretaries who retired in late 80s and early 90s many of them were inducted into the service, so were good, some were bad and some were terrible. There are certain locations in Delhi where you would find houses build by these bureaucrats which now are worth more than 50-70 crores, on little enquiry you will come to know that the land was allotted to them when DDA was formed at pittance. Many of their sons and daughters inter married and have one child in the civil services, one in judiciary, one in export business and one in property. Just like the landed gentry of 17th century England these families have tentacles in all the vital courses of the state. Central civil services has been the tool of preserving the generational wealth of certain ashrafiyas around Delhi. There was a thread on LI on the deep state, these ashrafiyas just a km away from LBZ are the true deep state.
He is definitely humble. My friend mistakenly elbowed him in the face in the stampede in Court No.3, his jr. began cussing my friend, however, he saw it said its okay and ended up appreciating my friends wristwatch