7 Dec 2021
Neta·ResumeAppointed Election Commissioner by the President on 31 Aug 2017 (Ministry of Law & Justice announcement) and took over as CEC on 2 Dec 2018 on the retirement of O.P. Rawat, as the senior Election Commissioner. No selection committee existed then. Before the 2023 Act there was no statute on selection: the Union government, by convention, picked senior serving or retired Secretary-rank officers and the President appointed on its advice, with the senior-most EC normally elevated to CEC (as described by the Supreme Court in Anoop Baranwal, 2 Mar 2023).
source ↗CEC Sunil Arora issued a statement calling the reported controversy over Lavasa's dissent unsavoury and avoidable, said Commission members are not expected to be clones of each other, and said the full Commission would meet on 21 May on the issue. Lavasa described the matter as internal.
The ECI press note itself was not located on eci.gov.in or PIB; text is as reported by PTI.
Education: B.A. (Hons) and M.A. in English, Panjab University (Hoshiarpur) - per ECI profile