The letters written by two election commissioners (ECs) to cabinet secretary TV Somanathan about the alleged misconduct of senior deputy election commissioner Maneesh Garg dealt with a worrying removal of oversight into the working of the Election Commission ’s director general of IT, Seema Khanna, HT learns.
Kumar didn’t respond to HT’s queries. Somanathan is believed to have forwarded the complaints about Garg, a Himachal cadre IAS officer, to the concerned personnel ministry, the department of personnel and training (DoPT) . HT has also learnt that Garg met the two ECs to clarify his position. He is believed to have explained to them that his decision was aimed at addressing a hierarchy issue since Khanna was senior to Kumar. Her former colleagues in the National Informatics Centre (NIC) say that she’s an efficient professional who was part of launching the government’s own e-mail system.
Because it provides a context to the clarification issued by the Election Commission last week that maintained that the letters written by the ECs to Somanathan were not related to a policy matter of the poll body or its IT department, but merely about the working of an officer deputed to the Election Commission of India, this is significant. Because khanna and the IT department are at the heart of a raging controversy after an investigation by the Indian Express said that the new IT protocol/system put in place by Khanna, and approved by the Election Commission, shut the database from the very people responsible for adding or deleting names, Electoral Registration Officials (EROs) and deputy EROs, it is also significant. Because any action would be tantamount to infringing on the autonomy of the poll panel, hT learns that the government’s view is that these letters were more in the nature of keeping it informed than seeking action ––.
Khanna was promoted from a level 14 to level 15 officer earlier this year, according to EC officials.
Their clarification also said the work redistribution issued by Garg was “not actually implemented after the orders of the two commissioners and the oversight over the IT division by the DEC was never actually withdrawn”. EC officials on condition of anonymity said that Kumar asked to be relieved as he wanted to go back to Delhi government .
