India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi wrote to the Cabinet Secretary over a dispute concerning work allocation, rather than directly approaching Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, an RTI reply obtained by India Today has revealed.
The response, dated October 19, came after an RTI application was filed on September 24. It confirms that both Commissioners sent letters dated July 29 to the Cabinet Secretariat.
Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi wrote to the Cabinet Secretary on July 29 regarding a work allocation dispute, bypassing CEC Gyanesh Kumar. An RTI confirmed the letters but the Cabinet Secretariat withheld their contents pending payment clarification.
The letters were registered on July 30 and forwarded by the Cabinet Secretary to officials in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the CEC’s office by August 5.
While the RTI response confirms that the correspondence exists, its contents are yet to be made public. The Cabinet Secretariat has withheld the 10 pages of letters, two pages of replies and two pages of file notings, citing a pending payment of Rs 28.
According to a newspaper report, Sandhu and Joshi had raised objections to a work allocation order issued on July 28. They reportedly told the Cabinet Secretary that the order violated established rules and that the changes had been made without informing them.
The revised work allocation was later withdrawn.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) issued a statement on September 26, responding to the controversy and explaining its position on the matter.
The Commission said the letter to the Cabinet Secretary was not about any policy decision involving the ECI or its IT division. Instead, it concerned the work of an officer deputed to the Commission.
“The work re-distribution orders issued by the concerned officer were not actually implemented after the orders of the two Commissioners,” the ECI said.
It also maintained that the Deputy Election Commissioner’s oversight of the IT division had never actually been withdrawn.
What does the RTI reply reveal?
The RTI response confirms that Sandhu and Joshi wrote to the Cabinet Secretary on July 29 and that the letters were subsequently forwarded to the DoPT and the CEC’s office.
However, it does not reveal what the two Commissioners specifically objected to or the details of the replies they received.
The correspondence remains at the centre of the controversy, with the full details of the dispute still unclear.
The RTI response is significant because it provides official confirmation of the letters, their dates and the offices to which they were forwarded. However, until the documents are released, the precise nature of the Commissioners’ complaints and the response to them cannot be established.
