When Two Election Commissioners Felt They Had to Write Outside
Not the usual internal notes that stay inside the building, but actual letters that went out to the Cabinet Secretary. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, both Election Commissioners, put their worries down on paper on 29 July and sent them straight to T.V. Somanathan. The RTI papers finally showed us what they wrote, and it is hard not to sit with it for a bit. Here is what happened, as far as the documents go. Bhanu Prakash Yeturu, the man looking after administration, went on leave. Maneesh Garg stepped in as the temporary link officer. Within hours he put out a new work-allocation order. It shifted who handled what among the senior people, including the ones dealing with the IT side of the electoral rolls. Sandhu wrote that nobody had discussed this with the Commission or with him. Joshi said the same, and added that when he asked for the file, it simply was not given. Both of them pointed to the 2023 law that is supposed to guide how the Commission works and asked for something to be done. What stays with me is the path they took. They did not just raise it inside. They wrote to the Cabinet Secretary. That choice says a lot about how things must have felt at the time. When two of the three people who make up the Commission decide they need to step outside to flag an administrative step, something is off. The Cabinet Secretariat looked at the letters and decided not to move further. The notings say the communications came from the two Commissioners in their personal capacity, not as a formal view of the whole body. Acting on them, they felt, could look like the executive poking into a constitutional institution. So they acknowledged the letters, marked copies to the Chief Election Commissioner and the Department of Personnel, and left it there. On paper it makes sense. In real life it left the concerns sitting on the record with no outside follow-up. Around the same period Sanjay Kumar, the Deputy Election Commissioner who had been handling the electoral roll and IT work, was sent back to his parent cadre in Delhi. The papers say it was on personal grounds. The timing, right after the order that changed how files from the IT division moved, still sits awkwardly. The Election Commission has said the disputed order was never actually put into practice once the two Commissioners objected. That may well be true. The sequence still leaves a few questions hanging. For anyone who watches how these institutions run, the whole episode brings up ordinary thoughts. How does a body like the Election Commission deal with differences when the people at the top are not on the same page about process? What happens when someone on temporary charge issues orders that senior members say were never talked through? And where does a regular person look for clarity when the public papers show two Election Commissioners felt they had to write outside? Transparency did a bit of the work. Commodore Lokesh Batra’s RTI application brought the letters and the file notings into the open. Without that we would still be going by newspaper stories and careful official statements. The reply does not give every single page, but it is enough to see the trail: the date of the letters, the officer named, the measured response from the Secretariat, and the decision to leave the matter inside the Commission. I am not pretending to know the full internal picture. Places like this have their own pressures and ways of working. What I do know is that when people at that level start writing outside normal channels about basic administrative steps, the rest of us have a right to notice. The independence of the Election Commission is not just a line in a law book. It is something people feel when they check their name on the voter list or stand in a queue on polling day. Any sense that internal processes are being stretched without proper talk chips away at that quiet trust. The Commission has given its side. The orders were not implemented. The letters were about an officer on deputation, not about policy. All right. Still, the fact that two Commissioners felt they needed to write those letters is now part of the record. So is the Cabinet Secretariat’s choice to stay out of it, citing the Commission’s constitutional status. In the end this is less about one officer or one set of orders and more about how a key institution handles disagreement. The RTI papers do not fix anything. They just let us see what was written and how it was received. For a country that needs the Election Commission to stay above the usual noise, that kind of visibility is useful. It reminds us that even these bodies are made of people who sometimes feel they have to put their concerns in writing and send them outside the building. Sources: RTI reply obtained by Commodore Lokesh K. Batra (Retd.); coverage in The Wire, The Indian Express, Business Standard, The Times of India and Hindustan Times on the July 2026 letters and what followed. Publisher By – Rohit Manral Written By – Anjali Pandey
RTI Papers Show Two Election Commissioners Flagged Work Changes Inside Poll Body, Cabinet Secretariat Stepped Back
New Delhi: Papers released under the Right to Information Act have brought into the open what two Election Commissioners wrote to the country’s top bureaucrat in July. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi each sent separate letters on 29 July to Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan. They raised questions about how Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg handled work allocation inside the Election Commission while filling in for another officer who was on leave. The letters, obtained by retired Navy officer and transparency activist Commodore Lokesh K. Batra, describe a sequence that left the two commissioners uneasy. Deputy Election Commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu, who looked after the Administration Division, was away from 27 July to 9 August. On 28 July Garg was given the additional charge as link officer. Within a few hours he issued a fresh order that reassigned responsibilities among Senior Deputy Election Commissioners, Deputy Election Commissioners, Directors General and officers of similar rank. Sandhu wrote that the revised allocation was put out without any discussion with the Commission or with him. He noted that Garg had allocated work to himself and to officers senior or equal in rank. The same letter pointed out that similar steps had been taken earlier despite clear oral and written instructions that such changes needed prior discussion or approval from the Commission. Joshi’s letter, almost identical in language, added one more detail: when he asked to see the relevant file from the Administration Division, it was not given to him. Both commissioners referred to Sections 18(1) and 18(2) of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. They asked for appropriate action. The work order also touched the routing of files from the IT Division headed by Director General Seema Khanna. Earlier those files used to move through Deputy Election Commissioner Sanjay Kumar. The new arrangement removed that step. Later reports noted that Kumar was repatriated to his parent cadre in Delhi in August, before his normal tenure ended. The Election Commission has said the redistribution order itself was never put into effect after the two commissioners raised objections, and that the letters concerned an officer on deputation rather than any policy or IT matter. Inside the Cabinet Secretariat the letters were examined. File notings from early August record that the communications came from the two Election Commissioners in their individual capacity. Officials noted that acting on them without a formal communication from the Election Commission as a whole could be seen as interference in the functioning of a constitutional body. The Secretariat is designed to keep the poll panel insulated from the executive. On 5 August the Cabinet Secretary acknowledged the letters and marked copies to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and to the Department of Personnel and Training. No further action followed from the Secretariat. The episode sits against a wider backdrop of questions about internal coordination inside the Election Commission during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Earlier newspaper reports had spoken of repeated notes from Sandhu and Joshi objecting to decisions taken without their knowledge. The RTI disclosure now places the July correspondence on public record and shows how the Cabinet Secretariat chose to treat the matter as an internal concern of the Commission rather than a subject for external intervention. Garg, an IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, has been with the Commission since September 2024 after appointment by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. The two commissioners’ letters did not claim any policy shift on electoral rolls; they focused on the manner in which administrative orders were issued and the absence of consultation. For its part the Election Commission has maintained that once the two commissioners objected, the disputed work-allocation orders were not implemented. The repatriation of Sanjay Kumar was described in official papers as being on personal grounds, though the timing coincided with the period of friction over file routing. The RTI reply has not released every page of the original letters or the full internal discussion. What it does confirm is the existence of the complaints, the precise date they were sent, the officer they named, and the Secretariat’s decision to stop at acknowledgement and information to the Chief Election Commissioner. In a system that places high value on the independence of the Election Commission, the choice not to step in is consistent with the principle that the poll body must manage its own internal arrangements. Whether the concerns raised by Sandhu and Joshi have been fully resolved inside Nirvachan Sadan remains a matter for the Commission itself. The public now has the documentary trail that shows two of its three members felt the need to write outside the building when they believed established procedures had been bypassed. The Cabinet Secretariat’s response underlines the boundary it is prepared to respect between executive offices and a constitutional institution. Sources: The Wire (22 October 2026), The Indian Express (23 October 2026), Business Standard (23 October 2026), The Times of India (23-24 October 2026), Hindustan Times reports referenced in subsequent coverage, and RTI reply obtained by Commodore Lokesh K. Batra (Retd.). Publisher By – Rohit Manral Written By – Anjali Pandey