EC issues new order, puts senior DEC Pawan Kumar Sharma over DG (IT) Seema Khanna
PTC Web Desk: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday issued a new work allocation order that puts a senior officer back in the reporting line above its Director General (IT), Seema Khanna. The move comes three months after two election commissioners objected to an earlier order and took their concerns to the Cabinet Secretary.
Under the new order, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner (DEC) Pawan Kumar Sharma will look after IT and ICT. Khanna has to send her files through him. The order says she “would put up files” of these divisions through the Senior DEC.
This effectively cancels the work allocation order of July 28. That order had taken IT and ICT away from the then DEC, Sanjay Kumar, and handed them to Khanna. It suggested she would report directly to the Commission and not to a DEC.
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What the two commissioners objected to
On July 29, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi wrote to Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan. They said Senior DEC Maneesh Garg had issued the July 28 order without the Commission’s approval.
The order itself was never amended until now. The EC has said it was not put into practice after the two commissioners raised their objections. Khanna kept sending her files through Garg, who had been handling IT as the link officer after Sanjay Kumar left the Commission in August.
An EC source said on Thursday that the work allocation order reflected a unanimous decision of the Commission. The source added that there is no change in the reporting structure of the DG (IT), who “has always been reporting to a DEC level officer.”
EC’s stand in the Supreme Court
The matter came out in public after The Indian Express reported on September 23 that the two commissioners had written to the Cabinet Secretary. Petitions on the functioning of the Commission were later filed in the Supreme Court.
On October 26, the EC told the court in a counter-affidavit that the July 28 order was issued by Garg, an officer of additional secretary rank. It said that, following a joint direction from the two election commissioners on July 30, 2026, the order “was never implemented.”
- PTC NEWS
