New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued a fresh order to bring back a senior deputy election commissioner (DEC) to supervise its information technology (IT) division, three months after a newspaper’s expose raised questions over decisions taken by the IT head, Seema Khanna.According to The Telegraph, a new order, dated October 4, states that Khanna is required to route all her files related to IT/ICT and Grievances/Public Grievance Redressal System (PGRS) through senior DEC Pawan Kumar Sharma.“She would put up files of above-mentioned functional divisions through Sr. DEC(PKS),” the order states.Khanna, who is the director-general of the IT division of ECI and oversees its digital infrastructure, including systems for electoral roll management, came under scrutiny when two Election Commissioners – Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi – expressed their concerns with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s unilateralism, including over a decision to remove this oversight, permitting Khanna to send her files directly to the poll body. They had expressed their unease over the fact that Khanna was allegedly acting on “direct oral orders” from the CEC.Also read: EC’s Latest Submission in SIR Case Suggests It’s Become Habituated to Filing False AffidavitsAn internal order on July 28, by senior DEC Maneesh Garg had removed DEC Sanjay Kumar from the charge of IT and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) divisions. Sandhu and Joshi had also then written to cabinet secretary T.V. Somanathan regarding the work allocation order of Garg, who had held interim charge of the administration department.The opposition has asked for Khanna to be prosecuted on charges of criminal manipulation and illegal centralisation of the voter verification process through the ECINET platform.Per a report in The Hindu, officials in the ECI who were unnamed insisted that there is no change in the reporting structure of the director-general of IT as she has always been reporting to a DEC level officer. “In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, the ECI had maintained that the July 28 order had never been implemented. The sources also said that the work allocation orders were issued as per unanimous decisions of the Commission,” the report states.The Congress has described this affidavit as “deceptive, deceitful and duplicitous” in addition to being “extremely damaging to itself”.Meanwhile, regarding the poll commissioners’ letters to the cabinet secretary, the cabinet secretariat had reportedly acknowledged them with a copy to the CEC for his “information”. However, according to a Right to Information (RTI) response received by Commodore (retired) Lokesh Batra, the secretariat had said that the letters were sent by the two ECs in their “individual capacity” and could not be treated as formal communication by the ECI as a whole.Also read: Election Commission’s New Press Note on SIR an ‘Admission of Guilt’Additionally, per the daily, Prakash Rajpurohit, an IAS officer of the 2010 batch, who was appointed as DEC in the ECI, against the vacancy caused by the premature repatriation of Sanjay Kumar, would now be assisting Garg in election planning. He would also be in-charge of delimitation.Kumar was DEC from August 2024 till August this year. According to the report, he had signed the ECI’s June 24, 2025, order initiating the SIR in the country, starting with Bihar.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.