The Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued a fresh order, which, among other changes, brought back Director General (IT), Seema Khanna, under the deputy election commissioner, even as poll body officials insisted that an earlier controversial order removing her was not implemented following objections raised by two Election Commissioners.
The latest work allocation order matters because it formalises the distribution of administrative, IT and grievance-related responsibilities within the commission after the dispute over the July 28 order.
Under the new arrangement, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner (DEC) Pawan Kumar Sharma has been assigned charge of IT/ICT, and Khanna must route files through him. “She would put up files of the above-mentioned functional divisions through Sr DEC(PKS),” the order said. According to a new work allocation order issued on Wednesday, DG (IT) Seema Khanna will now be supervised by newly appointed Deputy Election Commissioner Prakash Raj Purohit instead of Senior Deputy EC Manish Garg.
According to a poll body official, there had been no change in the supervisory authority to which its director general of Information Technology (DG IT) reports.
A controversy had erupted after Garg issued an order on July 28 asking Khanna to report directly to the Commission, comprising the Chief Election Commissioner and the two Election Commissioners. The official was responding to a question on whether Khanna had reported directly to the Commission between July 28 and November 4, without an added layer of a reporting boss in the form of a deputy EC.
Garg issued the July 28 order after another deputy EC, Sanjay Kumar, to whom Khanna had been reporting, was transferred to the Delhi government. After election commissioners S S Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected to the order, it was put in abeyance. “Since the order was not implemented, Khanna was supervised by Garg after Sanjay Kumar moved out of the EC. Now, she will report to Raj Purohit, who joined as deputy EC a few days ago,” the official said. Garg was the “link officer” for Sanjay Kumar, meaning Kumar’s assigned tasks were transferred to Garg after he left the Election Commission. An NIC officer, Khanna, is at the centre of a controversy over alleged centralisation of digital voter roll infrastructure and restrictions embedded in electoral software systems.
Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected. Following the development, the two commissioners - SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi wrote separate letters to the Cabinet Secretary on July 29, flagging concerns over the distribution of work, the work roster and the process through which the order was issued. Another controversy arose when Sanjay Kumar was prematurely repatriated to his parent cadre on personal grounds, almost a month after the July order, under a Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) order.
The EC had insisted in an affidavit in the Supreme Court that it had not implemented the July 28 work allocation order; a fresh order issued on Wednesday brought back the layer of oversight over Khanna.
The July 28 order led to disagreements in the EC, with Sandhu and Joshi writing separately to Somanathan on July 29, saying that Senior DEC ManeeshGarg had issued the orders without the poll body’s approval. Garg will oversee election planning and the EVM division, while Prakash Rajpurohit, a Deputy Election Commissioner, will support him in election planning and handle delimitation-related issues.
Letters by Sandhu and Joshi, obtained through RTI by transparency activist Commodore LokeshBatra (retired), explained their objections regarding Garg changing the work allocation of officers “within hours of” getting the charge of the administration wing “without discussing or informing” them, despite “repeated and explicit oral and written” instructions to all officers.
Joshi’s letter to Somanathan said Garg was “suddenly” given charge of the administration wing on July 28, a day after Deputy Election Commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu went on leave; in place of his link officer, Sanjay Kumar, another DEC, Garg was given the charge. Neither Yeturu nor Kumar had issued any changes in work allocation.