Prime Minister’s Office

All the PM’s Men: 13 Issues that Tell Us How the PMO Helps Modi Run a Presidential Govt

Those who are appointed to Modi’s office ensure that the spotlight remains only on the PM, in times of crisis – as the rescuer – and when the going is good.

Narendra Modi’s super-centralised decision-making gives little hope that he will be ‘collective’ as he sets about constructing a coalition government. This centralisation is also why he has had to face a far less-than-ideal outcome this election. This is part two of a series that looks at Modi’s PMO – which reflects this tendency far better than any other metric. Read the first here.

New Delhi: In the run-up to India’s G20 presidency, the number of Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers at the Prime Minister’s Office went up to seven.

Senior IFS officer Deepak Mittal was brought in to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office in November 2022, along with Vipin Kumar and Nidhi Tewari. While Mittal, a 1998 batch IFS officer, was appointed an officer on special duty (OSD), Kumar and Tewari, belonging to the 2013 and 2014 batches of the IFS respectively, and were placed at Modi’s office as a deputy secretary and under secretary respectively.

The list of officers in the PMO website, after the G20 summit, however, shows that five IFS officers are engaged in various posts — a number that equals the PMO under Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh.

Considering that the endeavour of the Modi regime was to turn the G20 presidency of India, though granted by rotation, as its foreign policy achievement, and to particularly showcase PM Modi as a ‘strong world leader’ to the Indian public, his office taking some amount of direct control of the mega year-long event was explainable.

However, some other key issues, concerns and crises handled by the Modi government, both domestic and related to foreign affairs, establishes another fact – that the PMO under Modi has been functioning almost in the style of a presidency, an unprecedented occurrence in the world’s largest parliamentary democracy.

Off and on, there have been references to Modi’s ‘presidential’ style of functioning in a parliamentary democracy, particularly because of his regime’s thrust on promoting ‘Brand Modi,’ and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) contesting all its elections by singularly projecting him.

Modi’s massive 2019 win was seen by many as ominous to India’s democracy because the mandate was achieved by converting the race into a presidential style of election between Prime Minister Modi and a non-existent contender from the opposition parties.

On looking back at the last five years, it seems that the mandate augmented a presidential style of governance by the Modi regime – with the PMO as its centrepiece. This style is more apparent when you take into consideration some setbacks and concerns that the Modi government came to face after his 2019 win.

Modi being the prime minister, heads the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) while the other member is his deputy, the home minister Amit Shah. In the last five years, some officers who served in key positions at the PMO were seen to have been dispatched by the ACC to handle significant concerns of the government. Perhaps the concern was that they might go out of hand and thereby tarnish the image of the prime minister as a strong leader. Some other officers were also pulled in by the ACC to work in Modi’s office, to likely ensure that a system that has been designed to put the spotlight only on the prime minister runs smoothly.

How 13 key issues were handled by the second Modi regime through officers posted at the PMO can drive home the point.

The Rafale deal

In October 2015, IFS officer Vinay Mohan Kwatra was appointed as an officer on special duty (OSD) at the PMO for three years. That year in April, PM Modi, during his visit to France, had agreed to buy 36 Rafale aircrafts from the French giant Dassault by curiously overturning his government’s decision to instead go for Sukhoi jets.

In October 2016, the Modi government signed the memorandum of understanding with France for that delivery. It was also around the same time when the Reliance Group of Anil Ambani jointly formed a company with Dassault to help deliver components for those jets.

In July 2017, Kwatra was sent from the PMO to Paris – to serve as India’s ambassador to that country. The posting to France of the top PMO official also coincided with the controversy around the Rafale deal, raised by the opposition Congress highlighting that the contract to Dassault signed by the Manmohan Singh government which was cancelled by the Modi government, had agreed on the delivery of 126 jets for a much lesser price.

Allegations of favouritism to the Ambanis were raised in the run-up to the 2019 general elections while the Modi government kept saying that it has nothing to do with the industrialist.

Kwatra continued on that post in France till February 2020. By then, in November 2019, the then Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, had dismissed a petition alleging wrongdoing by the Modi government. Gogoi sought a directive to initiate a probe on the deal.

Modi was safely ashore too for a second term after an election in which the Balakot strike and the Pulwama attack were made major poll issues by him. The SC decision to not to reopen that case came within the first year of the second term of Modi. This also hugely helped his government bury the matter and set aside the opposition’s demand for a probe. Gogoi’s judgement helped fortify the BJP government under Modi as one free of corruption – something that he continuously accuses the Congress of.

Meanwhile, the French press itself was abuzz in July 2021 after the former French president Francois Hollande stated in an explosive interview that the Indian government had proposed the name of Anil Ambani as an industrial partner for that bilateral deal.

India-Nepal map issue

In March 2020, Kwatra was sent to Nepal as India’s next ambassador. It was also the time when India was engaged with Nepal on the topic of a controversial map created by the Nepal government which included certain areas on the Indian border as part of that country. In May 2020, the Nepal cabinet approved that map. It was Kwatra as Indian ambassador to Nepal who held several key meetings to keep the issue under control with a regime that was seen tilting towards China.

The foreign secretary

In April 2022, the Modi government announced Kwatra as the next foreign secretary. In February 2023, Kwatra travelled back to Nepal to invite the Nepalese prime minister Prachanda to visit India, marking it as not only his first official visit to any country after taking over the reins in December 2022, but also the first high-level outreach by India to a Left leaning regime.

During that ensuing visit, Modi reiterated solving the border dispute mutually with a country that has cultural affinity with India.

In the last few days though, while Modi has been busy ensuring a third term at office, the Nepal-India territorial row has raised its head again. His trusted PMO hand, Kwatra, is in office as his foreign secretary till October 2024.

Handling the Sri Lankan financial crisis

Yet another IFS officer, Gopal Baglay, had been serving as joint secretary at the PMO since 2017. In May 2022, he was asked to take up the post of India’s high commissioner to Sri Lanka. Baglay served at that post till December 2023 before being sent to Australia as India’s next ambassador, but by then, he had helped fortify the Modi regime’s image within the power corridors of Sri Lanka over the fact that it had come to the country’s rescue during one its roughest times.

Under the watch of the man sent from the PMO, India extended to a financially-hit Sri Lanka assistance worth US $ four billion in 2022 through multiple credit lines and currency support.

Handling the arrest of 8 naval officers in Qatar

In April 2020, IFS officer Deepak Mittal was appointed as India’s ambassador to Qatar. In August that year, 8 Indian naval officers were arrested in Qatar on charge of spying for Israel.

Mittal was handling the negotiations of the India government on the pesky issue since with Qatar till November 2022, when he was brought back to the PMO as an advisor to the prime minister.

Mittal handled the crisis from the PMO with a strategy that included a meeting in Dubai between Modi and the Emir of Qatar last December. It also helped present the prime minister as the man directly dealing with the crisis when traditional channels would have the Ministry of External Affairs dealing with it.

When in February 2024, the naval officers were released, they thanked Modi. Modi, too, immediately went to visit the Emir in Qatar, thus furthering his domestic image as a ‘strong leader’.

One more PMO man thus delivered to keep the presidential style of governance of Modi ticking, and thereby, Brand Modi.

This effort was particularly talked about during the tenure of Sushma Swaraj, who was the external affairs minister in the first term of Modi. Instead of Swaraj, Modi was increasingly shown handling important foreign affairs issues or meetings – as the face of India’s foreign policy. In some foreign trips of Modi’s, Swaraj did not even accompany him, leading a set of opposition leaders to state in 2017 that Modi was not making optimum use of the minister. Swaraj’s sidelining was talked about in media too; and the fact that during her entire term, she did not give a single media interview. She was appreciated in the media for still making a mark as a foreign minister by reaching out to the Indian diaspora in need of the government’s help on social media.

The incumbent foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, is conscious about the importance of foreign affairs in Brand Modi, and is often heard giving credit to Modi, even if it has been the minister who has handled an issue.

Revenue secretary and GST implementation

Yet another man who helped Modi run a presidential style of governance was Tarun Bajaj. He served first as a joint secretary and then as additional secretary at Modi’s office – between April 2015 and July 2017.

Bajaj was thereafter dispatched to the department of economic affairs under the Union finance ministry as the secretary. He was, in fact, being groomed to take over as India’s revenue secretary, the officer that handles the Union Budgets. He particularly looked into taxation, an important component of the budgets. In August 2022, Bajaj was also accorded the additional charge of corporate secretary. He was the PMO’s man looking at the financial part of the Modi government which also includes handling complaints around the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).

Bajaj continued on that post till 2023 when Sanjay Malhotra took over from him as the revenue secretary.

Handling UP where Modi 2.0 got the highest number of LS seats

A PMO man was sent to Uttar Pradesh where Modi’s sizeable 2019 mandate hugely drew from. It was IAS officer A. K. Sharma.

Sharma went to UP to contest the 2022 assembly elections and then became a cabinet minister in the Adityanath government. He is often termed in Lucknow as the PMO’s eyes and ears in the Adityanath government. His entry into the UP government was also timed with the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, which would go on to project Modi months before the crucial elections as the proverbial king and the priest to have “given back” the temple to the Hindus.

Sharma thus became yet another PMO man to deliver Brand Modi by centralising power.

Modi’s Ram Mandir agenda

The Ram temple at Ayodhya also involved another PMO man, Nripendra Misra.

When he resigned from the post of the principal secretary at the PMO in August 2019, after serving Modi for five years, one wondered what would he do next. Weeks later, the trusted Modi aide was made chairperson of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), the official residence of the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru which during Modi’s era was overhauled to become a museum for all prime ministers. One floor of it exclusively promoted Modi.

A month later, Misra was handed the task of completing the temple project for Modi. It was under Misra’s watch that the consecration ceremony of the temple was carried out this January. There, the prime minister of a secular country took on the role of a priest and Brand Modi had its moment again.

Misra’s son Saket was nominated to the legislative council of UP. The BJP launched him as its candidate for these parliamentary polls from the Shravasti Lok Sabha seat. He lost.

Handling MGNREGA

IAS officer Amarjeet Sinha had retired in December 2019 as secretary, Ministry of Rural Development. After retirement, in February 2020, he was appointed at the PMO as one of Modi’s advisors.

In August 2021, though, he quit the PMO, becoming one of the topmost bureaucrats to have resigned from Modi’s office after Pradeep Kumar Sinha. Pradeep Kumar had hit headlines for having given extensions as cabinet secretary in an unprecedented manner before he was appointed at the PMO. As cabinet secretary, he was also part of the committee that had picked Urijit Patel as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, replacing Raghuram Rajan.

As far as Amarjeet was concerned, it seems his departure was just a cooling off period, because in November 2022, he was back in the Modi government. This time he was appointed to lead a committee to make structural reforms in the MGNREGA scheme. He delivered a report that questioned the very basis of the flagship scheme of the Congress era.

Kedarnath-Badrinath project

From time to time, Brand Modi pushers have also projected the prime minister as no less a man with a jhola, a sadhu, seeking peace in the caves of Kedarnath-Badrinath.

That carefully cultivated image of the prime minister is also attached to refurbishing the shines there for which the Modi government is spending a huge sum of public money.

In June 2022, Bhaskar Khulbe, another officer appointed to the PMO along with Amarjeet Sinha, was sent off to Uttarakhand as an OSD to the state government. Khulbe is native to Uttarakhand.

Khulbe is now the PMO’s man in Uttarakhand to push Modi’s shrines project. Significantly, it was Khulbe who not only oversaw the rescue mission of the workers in the Silkyara tunnel in November 2023 but also carefully controlled the image of Modi by ensuring that the prime minister talks to the workers first after their rescue. He also kept reiterating to local reporters that the PMO was directly overseeing the rescue mission.

Handling COVID-19 crisis

Keeping Modi’s presidential style going – with the help of the direct intervention of the PMO in day-to-day running of the government as a whole – was adopting during the COVID-19 pandemic too. The officer giving the daily bulletin to media persons on the COVID-19 scenario was a PMO official, Punya Salila Srivastava.

With the pandemic scenario worsening, Srivastava, an Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory or AGMUT cadre officer, was brought to the PMO from the Ministry of Home Affairs in October 2021. Punya was seen reading the government’s bulletin on COVID-19 – particularly in Hindi – every evening on national television, which helped send out a message to the public, particularly in the Hindi belt, that the government under Modi is fighting the virus.

There was also Tarun Kapoor, a bureaucrat who while serving as the secretary at the Union petroleum ministry, had ensured free delivery of gas cylinders under Modi’s flagship household scheme during the pandemic. Often called a ‘Modi man’, Kapoor was inducted into the PMO after retirement, in May 2022.

Handling Kashmir after reading down of Article 370

Of course, one of the biggest decisions of the Modi government soon after the 2019 win was making Article 370 ineffective in Jammu and Kashmir. It is common knowledge that the PMO, led by Modi’s national security advisor Ajit Doval, was handling the situation in Kashmir. Remember the video clip of Doval sharing biryani with some locals while interacting with them about the Modi government’s decision?

Handling CAG

Yet another Modi aide who was immediately placed in Kashmir after the state was turned into a union territory was G.C. Murmu, a Gujarat cadre IAS officer seen extremely close to Modi since the 2002 riots in that state.

In August 2020, he was appointed as the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) under whose watch there was not much scrutiny of the Modi government.

The appointment of officials handpicked only by the prime minister to handle issues and concerns of his government only indicates that there is an attempt to tightly control the narrative.

IAS officer who discovered the fodder scam

Amit Khare, as higher education secretary in the central government, is often given the credit of shaping the new National Educational Policy. In October 2021, the ACC led by Modi, brought him to the PMO as one of his advisors.

Significantly, as a young bureaucrat of the Bihar cadre in the mid 1990s, Khare had shot to fame for having stumbled upon the fodder scam of the Lalu Prasad Yadav regime. A series of cases were filed on the corruption case thereafter.

Curiously, Khare’s term at the PMO also coincided with the central bureau of investigation (CBI) getting clearance from the government to reopen the case. It ultimately led to Lalu’s conviction for five years by a CBI court in one of the fodder scam cases in February 2022.

Lalu going to jail might have given Modi the hope that his party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), would crumble in his absence; his son Tejaswi Yadav was also implicated in a corruption case which helped the BJP return to power in Bihar even after losing an election, in cahoots with the Janata Dal (United).

However, contrary to the BJP’s hopes, Tejashwi has emerged as a young leader with a strong connect with the ground – something that Brand Modi promotes for the prime minister too.

Meanwhile, Khare’s term was extended in October 2023 to match the term of the prime minster.

PMO, VIP References Can Now Be Considered For Quick Disposal of Income Tax Appeals

The Central Board of Direct Taxes said this while issuing fresh and superseding guidelines last week on when senior officials can choose to expedite the disposal of income tax appeals.

New Delhi: Income tax officials may now consider references from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) or from very important persons (VIPs) when choosing to dispose of appeals on a priority or out-of-turn basis.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes said this while issuing fresh and superseding guidelines on when senior officials can choose to expedite the disposal of income tax appeals.

According to the new guidelines, there are five situations where appeals at a certain organisation level may be expeditiously disposed of.

They are when a case involves a demand higher than Rs 1 crore, when VIPs or the PMO refers a case, when directions are received from a court, when senior citizens make requests or when a case involves genuine hardship.

Previous guidelines issued in December 2021 also mentioned five situations but VIP or PMO references were not one of them. Instead, they contained a provision for expeditious disposal where refunds were higher than Rs 1 lakh.

The new guidelines, issued on Thursday (March 7), deal with appeals pending at the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeal/Appeal Unit) and Additional or Joint Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeal) organisational levels.

They say that requests for expeditious disposal that are either raised at the appellant’s instance, or are referred by an assessing officer or a range head, “may be considered” by Principal Commissioners, Chief Commissioners or Directors General of Income Tax on the basis of recommendations made by jurisdictional principal income tax commissioners among other ranks.

As far as appeals within the jurisdiction of faceless income tax appeals commissioners are concerned, the new guidelines say that requests for expeditious disposals shall be referred to a Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (National Faceless Appeal Centre).

The ‘faceless’ income tax assessment and appeals system was created in 2020 so that taxpayers would not have to physically visit income tax offices or meet officials in person.

This was intended to increase convenience for taxpayers and rein in corruption.

What the Clutch of Conmen Faking Links to the PMO Says About Modi’s Governance Style

An opaque working style centred around the cult of individual leaders, a petrified media, the demise of watchdog bodies and inaction by the law enforcement agencies have provided an ideal breeding ground for power peddlers of all kinds.

Natwarlal, who ‘sold’ the Taj Mahal thrice and Red Fort once, all on stamp paper and duly registered, was a legendary cheat. Immortalised by feature films, including an Amitabh Bachchan-starrer, Natwarlal became a synonym for confidence tricksters. He was in and out of jail, once having jumped it.

Four decades later, there has emerged a new genre of Natwarlals – over a dozen of them. Smart, suave and glib talking, they all claim a Sangh parivar background. Or they seem familiar with the working style of the Narendra Modi establishment and the duties and functions of its leading lights. And a Gujarat connection, ethnic or professional, makes it a perfect brew.

India has never ever witnessed such a surge of conmen claiming links with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Under the somewhat transparent system of governance India had under Manmohan Singh and A.B. Vajpayee, political dynamics determined official decisions. This provided little role for conmen. Conmen thrive in situations where decisions are guided by one individual’s preferences.

They all claim access to the PM or his top aides. Claimed links with Amit Shah, kinship or association, are equally effective. Liaison with BJP president J.P. Nadda also works but only as a secondary option. That is why you find very few claiming Nadda’s patronage among the Modi era political tricksters and power peddlers. And one of them is Neeraj Singh Rathod, who belongs to Morbi in Gujarat.

Rathod operated among BJP MLAs in Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal and Jharkhand and specialised in brokering cabinet berths for aspiring ministers. For this, he used his position as Nadda’s ‘personal assistant’. At the time of his arrest, there were 28 MLAs on his list of ‘clients.’ Of these, three MLAs had paid him his “brokerage” for the cash-for-cabinet-berths service.

Among Rathod’s victims were the labharthi (beneficiary) MLAs from such faraway states as Goa and Nagaland. Police found out that the money thus collected was remitted into the online account of a mobile shop near Rathod’s house. Rathod was arrested on the complaint of a Delhi BJP MLA to whom he had promised a senior position in the PM Awas Yojana. Police found that to convince a client about his access to Nadda, Rathod once mimicked the latter’s voice on the phone.

Going by the long list of conmen, Amit Shah is at the top of the power dispensers’ graph. He has many ‘nephews’ and representatives. Some of them were active even before he became Union home minister in 2019. ‘Nephew-2016’ was the first recorded case of Amit Shah’s power dealers. His real name was Yash Amin but he went around as Viraj Shah and sold ministerships and other positions to BJP leaders. In 2016, he was arrested for duping a BJP leader of Rs 80,000. The victim alleged that Yash took money but did not do the job.

Four years later, Yash Amin resurfaced as Shah’s nephew and resorted to the same modus operandi. Most of those who were defrauded by ‘Nephew-2020’ wisely avoided bad publicity. But Yogindra Upadhyaya, BJP MLA, filed a police complaint against him for cheating Rs 40,000.

The latest to surface was ‘Nephew-2023’. This Viraj Shah, whose real name is Viraj Ashwin Patel, also calls himself Amit Shah’s ‘nephew’ who ‘works’ at the Gujarat chief minister’s office. He also introduces himself as ‘president’ of the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City).

He duped several models, offering to make them GIFT City’s brand ambassador. Some have filed police complaints. Hailing from Sargasan in Gandhinagar, his labharthis were mainly BJP MLAs in Maharashtra, UP, Haryana and Rajasthan. He offered to “fix” ministerships at the Centre or in BJP-ruled states.

Brajesh Rattan, another conman, did not present himself as a ‘nephew’ but freely drops Amit Shah’s name. Around April last year, a Mumbai-based businessman Praval Choudhary filed a police complaint alleging that Brijesh Ratan and others cheated him of Rs 2 crore. This was in lieu of getting a Rs 100 crore contract with the railways.

However, Ratan’s father who is s BJP leader and member of a railway panel, denied such allegation against his son. “Had I been a tainted person, why would the government yet again give me this responsibility?” he asked. The association with Amit Shah’s name scared the media and nothing much was heard about the complaint since then.

Now, meet Kiranbhai Jagdishbhai Patel, New India’s biggest political conman who earlier this year made headlines for his many daring escapades. Patel has been a product of the Modi style of PMO-centric administrative control with its opaque working system. In the good old days of democracy and openness, no unauthorised person could go to a state, get Z+ security, free stay and summon senior officials and give orders – all on behalf of the prime minister.

This was precisely what the Ahmedabad-born Kiran Patel did for years. His ethnicity and namedropping fooled the entire bureaucracy in Jammu and Kashmir, where the security apparatus is most active. When he claimed he was the ‘Additional Director in PMO (Strategy and Campaign)’, throwing weight about and ordering officials, everyone followed him in awe. For months, he moved around in a bulletproof car, two escort vehicles and a dozen SSB gunmen.

During his first visit, he was accompanied by his daughter and wife Malini Patel who is alleged to be involved in a Rs 15 crore cheating case. During another Kashmir visit, Kiran Patel took along Amit Pandya, son of a senior official of the Gujarat CMO, and businessman Jay Sivji Sitapara. The CMO official subsequently resigned, owning moral responsibility.

Patel, along with his entourage, went to the Line of Control (LOC), Gulmarg and Dal Lake with elaborate security cover, often accompanied by state officials. He was first introduced to Kashmir officials by a senior Rajasthan RSS leader. He also discussed state affairs with the media in charge of the BJP. In Kulgam, he enjoyed the tourism department’s hospitality. In January last, he held a G-20-related meeting at Surat on behalf of the PM. A local jeweller said he was personally invited by Patel.

The Gujarat police said Patel had been visiting the Valley right from 2015 for “review meetings” on behalf of the PM. He held BJP workers’ meetings in Gujarat and frequented ‘Kamalam’, the BJP headquarters in Koba, CMO and the state secretariat. Patel also visited Russia to ‘discuss’ defence cooperation.

Sanjay Prakash Rai Sherpuria is another Modi-era conman who made it big. However, the lack of Gujarat ethnicity was a drawback for him. He more than made up for this with his ingenuity and creativity. His residential address was ‘1, beside Race Course’, Delhi, He flaunts his photographs along with Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Nadda, Mohan Bhagwat and Anurag Thakur.

Sanjay Rai ‘Sherpuria’. Photo: Facebook/Sanjay Sherpuriya

After his arrest in April, it was revealed that he had collected a Rs 6 crore donation from a Delhi industrialist for his trust. The Union animal welfare department provided his outfit with Rs 2 crore ‘assistance’. The UP police have also arrested Kashif, Sherpuria’s accomplice.

Sherpuria described himself as an “author, Covid hero, and entrepreneur”. He used his contacts to fix things for third parties. He took Rs 11 crore from a Delhi businessman to ‘manage’ his problems with the Enforcement Directorate. His wife Kanchan is accused of defrauding the SBI of Rs 350 crore. He was also trying hard to get the BJP ticket from Ghazipur in UP.

His area of operation is so wide that he provided an ‘unsecured loan’ loan of Rs 25 lakh to J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. He created over 56 companies under dummy directors in which he pumped in funds as startup support. This was, it is alleged, a clever device to launder money earned by unfair means.

These are the big fish but the Modi era has been the ‘Amrit Kaal’ for conmen of all sizes. Here are some minor fraudsters who tried but failed to make it big:

Ankit Kumar Singh claimed to be a secretary in PMO and working in Modi’s Varanasi constituency, was arrested for seeking favours from local officials and others.

Vasudev Nivtuti Tayde was caught in Pune, where he was on a ‘secret’ mission from the PMO – where he claimed he was a deputy secretary.

Police have arrested a law graduate for impersonating an IAS officer serving at the Chief Vigilance Commission (CVC), from Mumbai.

Satyendra Prakash Chaturvedi was another minor fraudster who was arrested from Bareilly where he was posing as an IAS officer posted at the PMO.

An ‘IAS officer’ of the home ministry was held in Delhi while he was moving in a Bharat Sarkar vehicle.

None of this is happenstance. An opaque working style centred around the cult of individual leaders, a petrified media, the demise of watchdog bodies and inaction by the law enforcement agencies have provided an ideal breeding ground for power peddlers of all kinds. Conmen are those who take – and offer nothing in return. If we’re lucky, they get caught and we get to read about them. But here’s the real scary thought: what if there are also authorised brokers out there holding court, with an actual line to top?

P. Raman is a veteran journalist.

India Plans Federal Oversight of All Real-money Online Games

The Prime Minister’s Office overruled a proposal to only regulate games of skill and leave out games of chance, according to a government document and three sources.

New Delhi: India’s planned regulation of online gaming will apply to all real-money games after the Prime Minister’s Office overruled a proposal to only regulate games of skill and leave out games of chance, according to a government document and three sources.

The much-awaited regulations are seen shaping the future of India’s gaming sector that research firm Redseeer estimates will be worth $7 billion by 2026, dominated by real-money games. Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital have in recent years backed Indian startups Dream11 and Mobile Premier League, popular for fantasy cricket.

An Indian panel tasked with drafting the regulation in August proposed a new body to decide whether a game involves skill or chance, and then let skill games be governed by planned federal rules that call for registration requirements, know-your-customer norms and a grievance redress mechanism.

Chance games – considered akin to gambling, which is mostly banned across India – were set to stay under the purview of individual state governments which would be free to regulate them, Reuters has previously reported.

But in an October 26 government meeting, an official from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office objected to such a differentiation, calling for expanded oversight on all types of games, according to the confidential minutes of the gathering reviewed by Reuters.

Differentiating games as skill or chance wasn’t easy due to lack of legal clarity and contrasting court decisions, the minutes quoted the official as saying, adding “online gaming may be considered as one activity/service with no distinction.”

Defining games has been contentious in India. India’s Supreme Court says the card game rummy and certain fantasy games are skill-based and legal, for example, while different state courts have held different views about games such as poker.

Modi’s office and the IT ministry, which is drafting the rules, did not respond to a request for comment.

Three people directly involved in the rule-making process, including two government officials in New Delhi, told Reuters the rules will give the federal administration broader oversight on all types of games while state governments remain empowered to impose outright bans on gambling, or games of chance.

The drafting of the new regulations comes amid growing concerns that the proliferation of such games, particularly among young people, had led to addiction and financial losses, with some reported cases of suicide.

One of the government sources said Modi’s administration continues to be concerned about potential addiction to such platforms.

The government panel’s August report recommended new rules should include so-called “de-addiction measures” such as periodic warnings and advisories and fixing deposit and withdrawal limits.

Despite Past Warnings, CIC Again Pulls Up PMO for Denying Information on PM Sought Through RTI

While the present matter relates to the prime minister’s delegation of powers of appointment to his MoS (PMO), the CIC, in the past, had pulled up the PMO for not providing information requested through RTI applications.

New Delhi: The Central Information Commission (CIC) recently pulled up the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for giving “no substantive/justifiable reason” for refusing to answer an appeal by claiming exemptions under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The appeal pertained to a January 2015 letter from the director, PMO to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) which stated that, “Prime Minister has approved that powers regarding appointment/promotion to the levels below Joint Secretary or equivalent may be delegated to the MoS (PMO).”

Quoting this excerpt from the letter, the appellant, Pankaj Bansal, had sought information on three points through his March 27, 2021 application: the date on which the prime minister delegated the aforementioned powers; the relevant file notings and correspondence of the concerned files in which the matter pertaining to the delegation of powers had been dealt with; and any other document/information relevant to the matter available in the file(s) of the PMO.

When he failed to receive a response from the Central Public Information Officer (PMO), Bansal filed a first appeal. The First Appellate Authority (FAA)/director in the PMO, on examining the records in the matter, directed the CPIO (PMO) to provide a response to the applicant within 25 working days.

PMO CPIO sought exemption citing various grounds

However, the CPIO responded through a letter dated September 24, 2021, seeking exemption under Section 24 of RTI Act from answering the first query regarding the date on which the prime minister delegated the powers of appointment.

Section 24 of the RTI Act lays down that the Act shall not apply to the intelligence and security organisations specified in the Second Schedule, being organisations established by the Union government or any information furnished by such organisations to that government.

In response to the other two queries, seeking details of relevant file notings and correspondence and other related documents and information, the CPIO sought exemption under Sections 8 (1) (g) and 8 (1) (j) of the Act.

Section 8 (1) (g) pertains to “information, the disclosure of which would endanger the life or physical safety of any person or identify the source of information or assistance given in confidence for law enforcement or security purposes.” On the other hand, Section 8 (1) (j) covers “information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual….”

Also read: PMO Blocks RTI Requests on PM-CARES Again, Says Responding Will ‘Divert Resources’

Not satisfied with the response, Bansal approached the Commission with a second appeal on July 23, 2022. The matter was heard by Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Y.K. Sinha on November 3, 2022.

In his order, the CIC recorded that the appellant participated in the hearing through video conference. Sinha noted that the appellant questioned the applicability of Section 24 (1), 8 (1) (g) and (j) invoked by the CPIO.

CIC held PMO official “feigned ignorance” regarding reasons for seeking exemption

During the hearing, Bansal cited the judgement of the Delhi high court in Jamia Millia Islamia versus Sh. Ikramuddin (WP (C) 5677/2011) and the decision of the CIC in Dhananjay Tripathi versus Banaras Hindu University (CIC/OK/A/00163) in support of his contentions. He further stated that the documents were required by him to file a writ petition before the Delhi high court.

CIC Sinha recorded in his November 10 order that the respondent official from the PMO reiterated the reply provided to the appellant in compliance with the FAA’s order and stated that the information sought may contain inputs provided by several organisations exempted from the purview of the RTI Act, 2005. This, he recorded, was the reason why exemption under Section 24 (1) was claimed.

However, Sinha wrote, “…he feigned ignorance regarding the reasons for which exemption u/s 8 (1) (g) and (j) was claimed.”

In view of the fact that the assistant PIO, present during the hearing, was also unable to address the issues raised by the appellant during the hearing, the CIC directed the concerned CPIO (PMO) Parveen Kumar to re-examine the RTI application and provide a revised and reasoned response in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005, by November 30.

Incidentally, there have been instances in the past, too, where chief information commissioners have similarly pulled up information officers in the PMO for refusing information.

CIC had directed PMO to reveal info on private persons who accompanied Modi on foreign trips

Former CIC R.K. Mathur had in January 2018 directed the PMO to reveal information on private persons who accompanied Prime Minister Narendra Modi on foreign trips. In this case, repeated attempts were made by the PMO to deny information about the dignitaries and businessmen who accompanied the prime minister on official trips abroad, citing “security grounds”.

However, Mathur had directed the PMO to provide the appellant, Neeraj Sharma, with the “name/list of the private persons (who do not have any connection with the security) and who accompanied the prime minister on his international visits at public cost during 2014-2017″.

In this case, the appellant had complained to the Commission that the information sought by him had “not been provided” and that the PMO officials were “deliberately delaying the response to his RTI application by giving an interim reply”.

In his order, Mathur recorded that the appellant had contended that “there is no provision in the RTI Act for giving interim reply”. Further, he noted that Sharma had complained that the “sought for information has not been furnished to him”. The CIC also recorded in his order that as per the appellant, he had only been provided information on the first point raised by him and not the others.

PMO was cautioned when it delayed reply, diverted application on Reliance ad featuring Modi

In another instance, the CIC stepped in and cautioned the PMO against evading questions when an RTI application was filed posing questions on a Reliance Jio advertisement featuring a photograph of Prime Minister Modi. CIC Mathur, again in January 2018, had told the PMO to “be careful and give inputs for reply within the timeline prescribed by the RTI Act” when its officials evaded questions on the advertisement in which Modi’s photograph was displayed prominently.

In this case, appellant Neeraj Sharma had sought information on seven points, including whether “any permission was taken from the PMO by Reliance/Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited for the use of the prime minister’s photograph in their advertisements in different newspapers and TV channels, etc.”.

Since the PMO had not replied to the matter on time and had also diverted the application to another department which had claimed that it was not privy to the information, the CIC had cautioned it “to take due care in future in dealing with the RTI application”.

Mathur had also warned the concerned CPIO (PMO) to “be careful and give inputs for reply within the timeline prescribed by the RTI Act”.

However, as the latest case shows, there still continues to be some reluctance in a section of the PMO to provide information pertaining to the prime minister under the RTI Act.

The Wire Impact: Railways Divest Key PSU Head Named in CBI FIR With ‘Immediate Effect’

After ‘The Wire’ sent queries to the ministry’s bodies, on October 15, the director of the Railway Board issued a letter saying Amitabh Banerjee will be divested of the charge chairman and managing director of IRFC ‘with immediate effect until further orders.’

New Delhi: Days after The Wire sent queries to the Railway Board and the Vigilance Directorate of the Railways seeking their response on why they had confirmed a full term for the chairman and managing director of Indian Railways Finance Commission in spite of a Central Bureau of Investigation FIR naming him in a multi-crore corruption case, the ministry has divested Amitabh Banerjee of charges “with immediate effect”.

The Indian Railways Finance Commission (IRFC) is a public sector unit.

As per railway ministry sources, on October 15, Manoj Kumar, director of the Railway Board, issued a letter to the IRFC company secretary and the compliance officer in Mumbai, explicitly stating that “the competent authority” in the ministry had decided that Banerjee be divested of the charges of his post of chairman and managing director “with immediate effect until further orders” and sought its compliance as soon as possible.

The same afternoon, the company secretary and compliance officer asked Shelly Verma, director of finance at IRFC, to assume additional charge of the post from Banerjee, sources in the Railway Ministry told The Wire. She complied.

“Since IRFC is a listed company, such a compliance process is necessary if there is a change at the top level of the PSU’s management. This also needs to be informed to the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange,” a Railway Ministry source said.

By the evening of October 16 evening, the order was uploaded on both the BSE and NSE’s websites, thus making it a public document.

Amitabh Banerjee’s page on the IRFC website now contains a note on him having been “divested of the charges/duties” of the CMD’s post.

On September 26, The Wire had sent queries to V. K. Tripathi, the chairperson of the Railway Board, categorically asking why vigilance clearance was granted to Banerjee at the end of his one-year probation in October 2019 inspite of the fact that the CBI had named him as one of the prime accused in the Rs 144-crore corruption case at another PSU, Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited (HPCL) in March 2019.

Additionally, this correspondent had asked Tripathi through an email why Banerjee was still the authorised signatory for the PSU’s business matters – including the authority to pull out thousands of foreign currency from the Reserve Bank of India – even though there was an ongoing vigilance inquiry against him for misappropriating funds (including US dollars) as the chairman and managing director of the IRFC on as many as 30 counts.

He was also asked as to whether he would confirm that the office of the cabinet secretary refused to clear Banerjee’s official trip to Singapore in April 2022 citing the same vigilance inquiry against him, which eventually forced the PSU to send Shelly Verma and another junior official of IRFC on behalf of the PSU.

The Wire also reached out to Banerjee on the dame day – September 26. Banerjee denied all charges for which he was being probed by the Railway Vigilance Directorate since June 2021.

For more background and the details of Amitabh Banerjee’s reply, read The Wire’s exclusive story.

Having failed to elicit a reply from the Railway Board chairperson, The Wire wrote to Chandra Vir Raman, principal director of vigilance at the ministry, on September 30, seeking a response not only on why the department had cleared Banerjee’s probation period in violation of the guidelines set by the Central Vigilance Commission but also as to why there was tardy movement in filing a chargesheet in the ongoing vigilance case against Banerjee and some other IRFC employees. The case was filed in June 2021.

While The Wire failed to prompt a response from Tripathi and Raman in spite of more than a two-week wait, the October 15 action of the Ministry has shown that the Railway Board and the vigilance directorate of the railways had suddenly sped up the vigilance case against Banerjee.

A source at the Ministry told The Wire, “The reason cited by the Railway Board to divest Banerjee of his position is the number of allegations of financial misappropriation committed at IRFC but the point to underline is also that, had the vigilance department of the railways taken note of the CBI enquiry against him and some others while posted at another PSU which ultimately had led to its closure, could this case at IRFC involving public money be avoided in the first place? The CVC proforma had clearly asked the vigilance directorate to check if there was any charge of misappropriating public funds against the officer in the last ten years before he was to be cleared for a full term.”

The charges probed by the CBI against Banerjee and some other officials of HPCL concerned buying bamboo, the raw material to manufacture paper, from Assam’s Dima Hasao district at exorbitant rates.

In due course, the two paper mills of HPCL in that northeastern state had to be closed down, leading to loss of employment to several hundreds. As per the worker’s union, over a hundred employees committed suicide unable to meet their financial needs.

Speaking to The Wire after the IRFC’s decision to divest Banerjee of his post became public, Manabendra Chakraborty, president of the joint action committee seeking justice for the employees of the paper mills said Banerjee’s removal should not be seen as compensation.

“An accused officer’s removal from post will not ensure justice to the people who suffered because of corrupt practices at the highest level of the PSU. As many as 109 workers have died due to non-payment of their salaries,” he said.

Chakraborty said that the CBI’s decision to file a closure report without accusing any person was “shocking.”

“Had the Central government which claims zero tolerance to corruption taken quick action then, both the paper mills and hundreds of jobs and lives could have been saved. We still demand that all the losses made to the PSU be recovered by attaching properties of those involved in the scam and punishment with rigorous imprisonment be meted out to them,” he added.

Exclusive: Rail Ministry Overlooked CBI FIR Against Key PSU Head Named for Causing Rs 144 Crore Loss

The vigilance directorate of the railway board gave a clean chit to Amitabh Banerjee despite CVC guidelines.

New Delhi: In October 2020, the Ministry of Railways gave vigilance clearance to Amitabh Banerjee, chairman and managing director of one of its key public sector units, the Indian Railways Finance Corporation (IRFC), for a full term. It did so without taking into account the fact that the Central Bureau of Investigation had by then named him in an FIR about a multi-crore case of financial bungling at another PSU where he had earlier worked.

The ministry’s move appeared to have gone against its own precedent on zero tolerance to allegations of corruption. Banerjee’s predecessor, S.K. Pattanayak, did not make it past his probationary period in 2018, while National High Speed Rail Corporation managing director Satish Agnihotri – brought in to handle the Narendra Modi government’s dream bullet train project – was removed by the ministry earlier this year after graft charges surfaced against him at his previous position at another PSU, the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited.

Like Pattanayak, Banerjee, who was approved for post by the cabinet committee on appointments (ACC) in October 2019, was supposed to go through a mandatory one-year probation period – after which he would be confirmed provided he met benchmark norms for confirmation

According to guidelines set by the Central Vigilance Commission for confirming an officer, the Railway Board’s vigilance directorate was supposed to not only check for any allegation of misconduct involving vigilance against Banerjee while at the post for the year (October 2019-October 2020), but also run a background check on his integrity for the past 10 years.

Though the principal executive director of vigilance – which reports to the Railway Board – cleared Banerjee at the end of his probation period in October 2020, official documents reviewed by by The Wire indicate that the vigilance check overlooked an FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in March 2020 which named Banerjee, among others, as an accused in a corruption case at the Hindustan Paper Mill Corporation Ltd (HPCL) in Shillong. Banerjee was accused of abetting a loss of at least Rs 144 crore to the Union government between the years 2011-2013, when he was director, finance at HPCL, a PSU under the ministry of heavy industries.

The FIR was filed on March 4, 2020 in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills district by Vivek Dutta, head of the CBI’s Shillong branch. The formal legal move was based on the verification of a written complaint by the Ministry of Heavy Industries in 2017 to the agency, seeking registration of a case against all persons – “private or serving or retired” – responsible for causing heavy losses to the PSU by indulging in “serious irregularities” in procurement of bamboo from Assam’s Dima Hasao Autonomous Council.

The FIR named Banerjee as the third accused in the case, after the former HPCL chairman and managing director V.N. Rao and former director of operations, S.N. Bhattacharya.

Cachar HPCL Mill workers at a protest in 2019. Photo: Manabendra Chakraborty/Files

In fact, HPCL had ended up as a sick enterprise a few years ago due to massive financial irregularities, leading to its eventual shutdown. The Wire has extensively covered the suffering, including claims of deaths by suicide by the families of HPCL employees in Assam due to the financial crisis its two units found themselves in.

Also read: Assam: As Two Debt-Ridden Paper Mills Go Under the Hammer, Workers’ Worries Multiply

On February 22, 2017, the then joint secretary at the heavy industries ministry, Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta (now director general of police in Assam), wrote to the CBI, asking it to investigate the matter. However, by then – and in fact four years before that, in October 2013 – Banerjee had resigned from his post and moved to Konkan Railway as director of finance. He joined the Indian Railways Finance Corporation in October 2019 from Konkan Railway.

On September 26, The Wire asked V.K. Tripathi, chairperson of the Railway Board, how the Railways’ vigilance department had cleared Banerjee for a position that involves taking sensitive financial decisions on behalf of the ministry – including the authority to withdraw foreign exchange from the Reserve Bank of India – in spite of a pending CBI inquiry against him for financial bungling. Tripathi has not responded.

Also unanswered were queries sent on September 30 to Chandra Vir Raman, principal executive director of vigilance – including the grounds on which his department decided to go against the CVC’s guidelines in clearing Banerjee for a full term after probation, especially given the fact that the CBI FIR was filed seven months before Banerjee’s probation period had ended.

‘Wasn’t informed’: Banerjee

When The Wire contacted Banerjee on September 26 with a copy of the CBI FIR on which the date of filing is clearly stated, he said that since he himself was ‘not informed’ about the CBI FIR at the time, he did not inform the ministry about it.

“It came to notice only after a few months of the completion of (the) probationary period. It has been reliably learnt that the case has since come to an official closure after a detailed investigation by the CBI,” he told this correspondent in an email.

Though Banerjee denied any knowledge of the CBI FIR at the time it was filed, the case – including the names of the HPCL officers involved – was widely reported in the media at the time. A sample of a PTI report then, naming him as an accused, can be read here.

As per rules, Banerjee was supposed to mention this FIR while filing a report on completion of his probationary period at the IRFC. Additionally, the railway vigilance department was supposed to conduct its own background check on Banerjee’s conduct and file a report to the chairperson of the Railway Board. That report had to then be forwarded to the ministry for approval of the Union railway minister, which, in this case, was Piyush Goyal at the time.

Vigilance directorate under fire from finance ministry

Aside from the CBI FIR, the vigilance directorate of the Railways had also not taken cognisance of the fact that the CVC had flagged the financial bungling at HPCL to the heavy industries ministry as far back as 2016 (CVC case no 011/HVI/007 dated 23.09.2016).

Sources in the heavy industries ministry confirmed to The Wire that Mahanta’s letter to the CBI in 2017 had cited the CVC complaint stating that inflated rates for bamboo were decided for both the HPCL mills in Assam at a meeting “attended by Amitabh Banerjee, director (finance)” aside from some other senior officials of the Corporation, including “S.N. Bhattacharya, director (operations).”

The railway vigilance directorate’s decision to clear Banerjee despite a pending charge figured indirectly in a note filed by a panel headed by Sanjeev Sanyal, then the principal economic advisor to the Narendra Modi government, in September 2021.

Sanyal noted that though the railways has the largest vigilance department in the Union government, it has barely followed CVC guidelines. Strongly recommending that the railways follow those guidelines, Sanyal’s note raised questions “on the legality of the decisions made in the past and pending cases of the Vigilance Directorate relating to allegations of corruption and other irregularities involving thousands of employees, including senior officers, in the past.”

Interestingly, Banerjee was appointed by the ACC a month before the PMO issued instructions to all ministries to weed out ‘dishonest officers’ from Union government departments.

Accusations during tenure at IRFC

Barely eight months after the the railway board cleared Banerjee and he was regularised, a case was registered at the vigilance directorate to probe financial discrepancies at the PSU on as many as 30 counts against ‘IRFC employees’ including Banerjee, company sources told The Wire.

An RTI applicant, who has requested that his name be withheld, asked the vigilance directorate of the railways whether any complaint was registered against IRFC employees including CMD Amitabh Banerjee, from June 2021 onwards.

The March 5, 2022 reply by Sunil Kumar Singh, director in charge of vigilance of the Railway Board, said somewhat cryptically:

“Yes, complaint is registered against employees of IRFC. Further, prescribed information sought for cannot be provided as the case is still ongoing and under submission to higher authorities thus it may impede the process of investigation.”

According to ministry sources privy to the pending vigilance inquiry against Banerjee, the allegations are also against Banerjee, and include “spending around $ 27,000 of as ‘entertainment allowance’ to buy expensive watches, mobile phones, laptops, gold coins, expensive shawls, etc.”

The sources told The Wire that though Banerjee had stated that those were “gifts” meant for clients he was to meet during an official foreign trip, but sources questioned the rationale for the purchases because the clients for whom the ‘gifts’ were intended “want to invest in India and make profits. There has never been any need for the IRFC to bribe clients to give loans to the Union government in lieu of an interest in private entities to build wagons, rolling stocks, etc.,” one source said.

On asked about the allegations, Banerjee told this correspondent, “No such charges as per my information”, urging The Wire to “desist from (publishing) misinformation and willful canards spread by vested interests.”

In April 2022, taking serious note of the ongoing inquiry, the office of the Union cabinet secretary refused to clear Banerjee’s business trip to Singapore. Sources in the government told The Wire, “On cabinet secretary’s refusal to clear his trip to represent the government of India, the Ministry of Railways had to then send two junior officers on that trip.”

Sources at the railway ministry confirmed this.

“A note to that effect was written to the ministry by the cabinet secretary’s office, forcing it to send two junior officers – Shelly Verma (director of finance of the Indian Railways Finance Commission) and Ajit Srivastava (a Railway Board Officer) – on that official tour to carry out market study/survey and meet investors while the country is facing global crises due to the Ukraine war, etc.,” a source said.

A source added, “Aside from Banerjee, the cabinet secretary’s office also refused to clear the name of another senior official who was to accompany him based on a technicality.”

Other vigilance allegations against Banerjee include staying with his family at the IRFC guest house in Green Partk for a long period and getting the company to pay for a more expensive 10-year British visa on his personal passport despite having around a year to go in service.

AAPSU Sets Deadline For Census of Chakma-Hajong Refugees

The All Arunachal Pradesh Students Union gave a 15-day ultimatum to the state government to carry out the census of the Chakma and Hajong refugees.

Itanagar: The All Arunachal Pradesh Students Union (AAPSU) on Saturday gave a 15-day ultimatum to the state government to carry out the census of the Chakma and Hajong refugees.

AAPSU general secretary Tabom Dai told reporters that the enumeration process came to a halt after the state government received a letter from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on December 7.

“The enumeration process of the refugees should continue as usual,” Dai said, urging the Arunachal Pradesh government not to succumb to intervention from external forces .

Also read: Kiren Rijiju Kicks Up Storm, Says Chakmas, Hajongs Have to Leave Arunachal Pradesh

He said the census of Chakmas and Hajongs is a regular administrative exercise to maintain data required for the safeguard of indigenous people.

Earlier, the Chakma Development Foundation of India (CDFI), in a petition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, had alleged racial profiling of 65,000 Chakmas and Hajongs in Arunachal Pradesh.

AAPSU also sought to know the status of the Assam-Arunachal boundary dispute, and demanded deployment of adequate security personnel in sensitive areas to maintain peace.

(PTI)

‘Atrocious’, ‘Just a Discussion’: The Range of Ex-CECs’ Reactions to Nov 16 Talks With PMO

While most ex-CECs said no one comes off as looking good from such a meeting, one disagreed.

New Delhi: The report of a letter from the law ministry seeking the presence of the Chief Election Commissioner in a November 16 meeting on common electoral rolls that was to be chaired by Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister has irked former CECs.

Terming the demand an attempt to undermine the office of the Election Commissioner, the former CECs said the incumbents made the right choice by not attending the meeting.

Some of the former CECs added that it would have been better if the three Commissioners had also not taken part in the informal discussion with the Principal Secretary to the PM, P.K. Misra, which followed the formal meeting.

However, one voice from among the former CECs supported their participating in the informal discussion claiming that there was nothing wrong in it as long as they were not going to the Principal Secretary’s office or attending a meeting chaired by him.

On November 16, the Union law ministry wrote to the Election Commission that the principal secretary to the PM will “chair a meeting” on a common electoral roll and “expects the CEC” to be present, the Indian Express, which broke the story on Friday, reported.

Subsequently, the report, citing a senior EC official had stated that CEC Sushil Chandra made his “displeasure” known to the ministry and declared that he would not attend the meeting. While he and the other two commissioners, Rajiv Kumar and Anup Chandra Pandey, did not attend the video meeting, it was attended by their subordinates.

However, the three commissioners later attended an online “informal interaction” with Mishra soon after the formal meeting got over.

‘Even PM cannot call EC for a meeting’

While Election Commission officials did not come on record on the episode, the Indian Express cited at least three former CECs as saying that the government’s letter to the CEC was “unacceptable”. It quoted former CEC S.Y. Quraishi as saying, “This is unacceptable…Would the government call the Chief Justice of India along with all other Supreme Court judges for a discussion on judicial reforms? That’s the only analogy that applies in this case. So why call the (Election) Commission for a meeting? Even the Prime Minister cannot call the CEC for a meeting.”

Terming the development as “atrocious”, Quraishi also contended that “any meeting taking place between these authorities (the commissioners and the government) is bound to raise suspicion (in the minds of people). Our (EC) officers know everything. They are ones who process (electoral) reform proposals. The officers are trained precisely for this purpose and they go regularly to explain the Commission’s point of view in meetings of the government. There is no question of the commissioners attending an interaction sought by the government.”

The report also cited another former CEC as saying that the interaction was “100% avoidable” and while governments in the past too have made attempts to get the EC to attend their meetings, the Commissioners never went for them.

Also read: ECI’s Conduct of 2019 Elections Raises ‘Grave Doubts’ About Its Fairness: Citizens’ Report

‘Image of EC ahead of polls could be impacted’

Another former CEC said “no one comes off looking good after such a meeting” and that the optics of the interaction coming soon before assembly polls in five states had not done the poll panel any good.

Former CEC T.S. Krishnamurthy too decried the move saying that “Election Commissioners are not required to attend any meeting convened by officials” and that “clarifications, if required by the government, can be sought from the ECI in writing, for which responses can be given in writing.”

The report also cited a senior EC official as saying that the interaction between the ECs and the PMO was about “long-pending reforms like multiple cut-off dates to facilitate a common electoral roll”, and was meant to “expedite the reforms”.

The official also said that the interaction was “informal”, it was “not a meeting” and the Commissioners did not discuss anything related to the elections.

‘CEC, two ECs did right’

Speaking to The Wire, former CEC N. Gopalaswami said that while the contents of the letter were indeed problematic, the CEC and the ECs did not surrender the status of the EC as they only attended the informal session and not the meeting chaired by the Principal Secretary to PM.

“Attending the online session is fine. What prevents you (EC) from discussing an issue with anybody? After all he is not saying that I am principal secretary and therefore you come and attend the meeting. If someone says attend the meeting with me, I would like to discuss things with you – then it is absolutely fine,” he contended.

Going into the larger issue, Gopalaswami said, “The issue is not who calls the meeting, the issue is what is to be discussed. As long as it is an exchange of opinion, there is nothing wrong with it. After all you are part of the system in which conduct of elections is your responsibility and so if someone wants to discuss elections, then by all means it is fine as long as you do two things – you don’t go to their office showing your office in a lesser light; and suppose they come to your office it is fine. But online you can discuss because it is all equal at that point of time.”

‘Discussing an issue is not surrendering of status’

Gopalaswami added that the CECs have in the past too gone and talked to the PMs if necessary. “There have been instances. You are not surrendering your status as the CEC, you are discussing an issue with the head of government.”

On the objection raised by one of the former CECs that this episode was akin to the Centre summoning the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and brother judges for a meeting, Gopalaswami said there is a difference because the Chief Justice does not discuss matters with the government which are of mutual interest. “If there is such a matter, then what is wrong? Suppose there is a meeting to discuss pendency of cases or the like, why should anyone have a problem. The problem only arises if the President or the PM says why a particular case is being handled in a particular fashion.”

So, he concluded saying, “The letter may be a problem and if they had acted on that letter and gone to the Principal Secretary’s office or attending a meeting which he was presiding over then too it would have been problematic. But if after the meeting he requests a discussion, it is absolutely fine.”

CEC ‘Interacted’ With PMO After Unusual Govt Note Demanding His Presence at Meeting: Report

The law ministry’s letter requesting the CEC’s presence at a meeting held by the PMO was highly irregular since the Election Commission usually maintains a distance from the Executive to ensure autonomy of functioning.

New Delhi: Chief election commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra and election commissioners (EC) Rajiv Kumar and Anup Chandra Pandey attended an unusual online “interaction” called by the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) on November 16, the Indian Express has reported.

This interaction reportedly took place a day after the Election Commission received an irregular note from the Union law ministry – the poll panel’s administrative ministry – stating that P.K. Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, would “chair a meeting” on the common electoral roll and that he “expects” the CEC to be present.

The wording of this letter raised eyebrows within the Commission with an official telling the newspaper that it read like a “summons” and that previous meetings on the topic were attended by officials of the Commission and not the commissioners themselves, the newspaper reported.

What made this note and the subsequent meeting irregular is that the Commission usually remains distanced from the Executive in order to maintain autonomy of function. The Commission’s interactions with the government on election issues usually remain limited to its administrative ministry; the law ministry or, if security forces need to be arranged for a certain election, the home ministry.

As such, CEC Chandra was reportedly upset with the note and averred that he would not attend the meeting, according to a senior EC official. The meeting with Mishra was thus attended by the Commission’s officials and not the commissioners but, immediately after the meeting, the CEC and two ECs did attend an “informal interaction” with Mishra on the topic of a common electoral roll.

A senior Commission official, speaking about the reforms that were discussed in the interaction, was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “This was done to expedite reforms so that there is no gap in understanding and no delay.” The cabinet is thought to have cleared these reforms on Wednesday.

When asked if this meeting was “proper” vis-a-vis constitution norms and precedents, the official reiterated that it was only an informal interaction to expedite the reforms and that there was no discussion on the upcoming assembly elections in several states.

Watch: Uttar Pradesh Election 2022: Keshav Prasad Maurya’s Communal Plank

The common electoral roll agenda to facilitate simultaneous elections and reduce the costs associated with the numerous elections at different levels across the country was mentioned on the BJP’s 2019 Sankalp Patra (election manifesto).

However, this demand has been made for a long time, by the law commission in 2015 and by the election commission in 1999 and 2004.