In the July 28 work allocation order, the subjects of IT and ICT were removed from the work allocation of then-DEC Sanjay Kumar and mentioned only against Khanna’s name, thereby making it clear that she would have reported directly to the Commission, instead of a DEC.

The IT division of the EC handles the ECINet, a digital platform facilitating citizen engagement and participation in the electoral process, and ERONet that helps EC officials maintain the electoral system. The two ECs had in separate internal noting said officers on the ground had conveyed to them that they were not getting proper access to ERONet and this was leading to a “centralisation of electoral rolls”.

The July 28 order had Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi writing to Somanathan the very next day, saying that Senior DEC Maneesh Garg had issued the same without the Commission’s approval.

The July 28 work allocation order had not been amended until now.

The EC said it was never implemented following the concerns raised by the two ECs. In effect, Khanna had continued putting up files through Senior DEC Garg, who had been in charge of IT as the link officer after DEC Kumar left the EC in August.

“The work allocation order is as per unanimous decision of the Commission. There is no change in the reporting structure of DG IT. She has always been reporting to a DEC level officer,” an EC source said Thursday.

On July 30, an internal note signed by Sandhu and Joshi, and circulated within the Commission, said, “…Therefore, till the time a consensus is reached in the Commission with regard to the change in the work allocation, the previous work allocation issued by order dated 23.09.2025 shall continue.”

After The Indian Express investigation on September 23 revealed that the two ECs had written to the Cabinet Secretary, the EC had in a September 26 press note said, “The letter to the Cabinet Secretary was not related to any policy matter of the Commission or IT division, but related to working of an officer on deputation to ECI. The work re-distribution orders issued by the concerned officer were not actually implemented after the orders of the two Commissioners and the oversight over the IT division by the DEC was never actually withdrawn.”

On October 26, in an affidavit before the Supreme Court, the EC said, “In view of the joint direction dated 30 July 2026 by the two Election Commissioners, the order of 28 July 2026 was never implemented.”

In his letter to the Cabinet Secretary, Joshi had pointed out that the July 28 order issued by Garg was not approved by the Commission and that when he had asked for the relevant files, it was not provided to him.

“In the said order, he allocated work to himself as well as to officers who are senior and equivalent to him,” Joshi had written.

Apart from the change in the work allocation for IT, Wednesday’s order also took into account the recently-appointed Deputy Election Commissioner, Prakash Rajpurohit, who was given the subjects of election planning, Model Code of Conduct and delimitation, among others. On election planning, he will support Senior DEC Garg, it stated.