New Deputy Election Commissioner Appointed: How Officers Reach the Election Commission and the Central Staffing Scheme
Prakash Rajpurohit, an IAS officer of the 2010 batch, has been appointed as a Deputy Election Commissioner (DEC) in the Election Commission of India (ECI).
He fills the post left empty when the earlier DEC, Sanjay Kumar, was sent back early to his home state cadre (this is called premature repatriation). Sanjay Kumar served as DEC from August 2024 to August 2026 and handled electoral rolls (voter lists) and IT. He had signed the ECI's order of 24 June 2025 that started the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists.
The appointment matters because the two Election Commissioners had written to the Cabinet Secretary. They objected that files of the ECI's IT head were no longer being sent through the officer in charge of voter rolls and IT, and called this a violation of the internal process.
The IT head joined the ECI in 2025 on deputation from the National Informatics Centre (NIC). After she was promoted to Level 15 of the pay matrix (equal to an Additional Secretary), her files could not go through a Joint Secretary (Level 14). An internal order said her files should go straight to the Election Commissioners, but files were instead routed through the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner.
Officers like DECs reach the ECI through the Central Staffing Scheme (CSS) run by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). It remains to be seen how work is now shared out inside the ECI before the Assembly elections due early next year.
Election Commission of India (Article 324): Powers and Functions
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is the constitutional body that runs elections to Parliament, the state legislatures, and the offices of the President and Vice-President. Article 324 gives it the "superintendence, direction and control" of preparing voter lists and conducting these elections. It is led by a Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and two Election Commissioners (ECs), who take decisions together. Below the three commissioners, a secretariat of officers, including Deputy Election Commissioners, does the daily work.
The dispute is about how files move inside the ECI's secretariat and whether the two ECs see the work of key departments like IT and voter rolls. Because ECs and the CEC decide together, the flow of files to all three members matters. The new DEC was supplied to the ECI under the staff duty in Article 324(6), through the Central Staffing Scheme.
Central Staffing Scheme: How Officers Are Posted to the Centre
The Central Staffing Scheme (CSS) is the system the Union government uses to fill senior posts in its ministries and departments, such as Deputy Secretary, Director and Joint Secretary, by borrowing officers from the states and from central services. An IAS officer who has worked for years in a state comes to Delhi for a fixed term, works in a ministry, and then goes back. This temporary posting is called central deputation. The scheme is run by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), and the final approval comes from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).
The new Deputy Election Commissioner reached the ECI through this system of central deputation. His predecessor's early return to his cadre is an example of premature repatriation. The vacancy he left in the voter rolls and IT division set off the internal dispute over how files should move.
All India Services (Article 312)
All India Services are civil services common to the Centre and the states. Officers are recruited by the Union through the UPSC, but each officer is given to a state cadre and spends most of the career working for that state. They can also be sent to the Centre for some years on central deputation. Today there are three All India Services: the IAS, the IPS and the Indian Forest Service (IFoS).
The new Deputy Election Commissioner is an IAS officer, a member of an All India Service. Because these officers serve both the states and the Centre, they can be sent to central bodies like the ECI, and also sent back early to their state cadre, as happened with his predecessor.
- New Deputy Election Commissioner: Prakash Rajpurohit, IAS (2010 batch).
- Previous DEC (voter rolls and IT): served August 2024 to August 2026, repatriated early to parent cadre.
- ECI order starting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists: 24 June 2025.
- ECI IT head: on deputation from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) since 2025; promoted to Level 15 (Additional Secretary equivalent).
- Joint Secretary = Level 14 of the pay matrix.
- Work allocation among ECI officers is done by the Deputy Election Commissioner (Administration).
- Article 324(6): President or Governor must provide staff to the ECI on request.
- CSS tenure: 4 years (Deputy Secretary), 5 years (Director, Joint Secretary); cooling-off 3 years.
- Central Deputation Reserve: up to 40% of senior duty posts.