NEW DELHI, Feb 14:
CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra was today appointed as an
Election Commissioner ahead
of the Lok Sabha polls due this
summer. The Law Ministry issued a notification announcing
his appointment.
Chandra, an IIT graduate, is
a 1980 batch officer of the Indian Revenue Service (Income
Tax cadre).
With his appointment, the
EC now has Sunil Arora as the
Chief Election Commissioner
and Ashok Lavasa and Chandra as fellow commissioners.
Chandra, 61, will have to resign from CBDT, where he is
serving, before joining the poll
panel. He will assume his new
charge on Friday.
Since Chandra has expertise in taxation
and investigation, he could
help the poll
panel in election expenditure by political
parties and candidates, a senior
EC official felt.
Before Chandra, TS Krishna-murthy was
the other IRS officer to be appointed as Election Commissioner. He went on to become
the Chief Election Commissioner in 2004.
Chandra was appointed as
CBDT chief in November, 2016
and has since
been given two
extensions. He
was due to retire
in May. When
Om Prakah Rawat retired as
Chief Election
Commissioner
in November,
2018, Arora,
then an Election
Commissioner, took over as the
chief of the poll panel.
After Rawat’s retirement, there was a
vacancy in the election watchdog which has now been filled.
While Arora and Lavasa are
1980 batch IAS officers, Chandra is also from the 1980 batch,
but from IRS.
Chandra will retire in May,
2022 on turning 65. Lavasa
would retire a few months later in October, 2022. CEC Arora has a tenure till April, 2012.
The CEC or an EC can have
a tenure of 6 years or hold office till the age of 65 years,
whichever is earlier. The convention is to appoint the senior-most Election Commissioner as Chief Election Commissioner. – PTI
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