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.
The Election Commission (Conditions of Service of Election Commissioners and Transaction of Business) Act, 1991 lays down that decisions of the Commission are taken by majority. 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.
The Election Commission also did not respond. Some government officers are of the opinion that Garg’s perceived misconduct is a structural problem. When the ECs disagree, either in meetings or by circulation of files, each member’s view is recorded. Business can be allocated among commissioners for day-to-day matters, but any matter on which the commissioners disagree, or any commissioner requests referral to the full Commission, must go to the full three-member body for a majority decision.
