Gurugram: The Haryana government has written to the Union government seeking a second service extension for Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi, whose current tenure is set to expire on June 30. A senior functionary in Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini’s team confirmed to ThePrint that the state has sought another year’s extension for Rastogi.
If the Centre approves the proposal, Rastogi will continue as the state’s top bureaucrat until June 2027, a run that would effectively close elevation options for many other senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers in the Haryana cadre who he has superseded.
Rastogi, a 1990-batch IAS officer, had first been appointed Chief Secretary on 31 October, 2024 on an interim basis when Dr Vivek Joshi, then the designated chief secretary, needed time to be repatriated from his Central deputation. That appointment lasted barely a week.
When Joshi was subsequently appointed Election Commissioner in February 2025, the government again turned to Rastogi, this time in full, once more ignoring the seniority claims of his batchmates Sudhir Rajpal and Sumita Misra, both placed above him in the Haryana IAS cadre’s gradation list.
Rastogi reached the age of superannuation on 30 June, 2025, and was granted a one-year extension.
The state government is understood to have cited the need for administrative continuity, specifically the ongoing rollout of the paperless registry system, Parivar Pehchan Patra-linked schemes, e-governance reforms, investment projects, and Centrally sponsored programmes, as grounds for the fresh extension request.
The Nayab Saini government’s case for retaining Rastogi appears rooted as much in political comfort as in administrative logic. Rastogi has a clean reputation, an unobtrusive working style, and a rapport with the political executive that has made him the government’s preferred choice at every critical juncture since October 2024.
If he gets the second extension, he will not be the first chief secretary to receive multiple extensions. In Uttar Pradesh, Dina Nath Mishra was given three extensions, a precedent the Haryana government may well invoke if the Centre raises objections.
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The supersession question
When he was made chief secretary for the second time, Sudhir Rajpal stood at number one and Sumita Misra at number two in the Haryana IAS seniority list, though both belong to his 1990 batch.
In February 2024, Rastogi, along with batchmates Ankur Gupta (now retired) and Raja Sekhar Vundru, had cited in a representation to then chief secretary TVSN Prasad, that Rajpal and Misra were both transferred to the Haryana cadre from other states, seeking a revision of the seniority list to place them ahead of the two transferred officers.
Prasad had called all five officers for a personal hearing, but took no final decision.
Misra, however, had said in her reply to the then chief secretary that she was not transferred from another state cadre and was provisionally allocated to the Haryana cadre, which was eventually confirmed.
The government never formally resolved the dispute but proceeded to appoint Rastogi over the heads of both.
Clock runs out on a generation
If Rastogi gets the second extension, he would retire in June 2027. By then, the officers whose claims he has superseded will themselves have left the scene. Rajpal’s date of retirement is 30 November 2026. Misra retires on 31 January 2027. Vundru, the fourth-ranked 1990-batch officer and a co-signatory of the original seniority representation, retires on 31 July 2026, just weeks after Rastogi’s present tenure ends.
From the batches placed just below, Abhilaksh Likhi (1991 batch), currently on Central deputation as secretary in the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, retires on 30 November 2026. Arun Kumar Gupta, a 1992-batch officer who serves as Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Saini, retires on 30 September 2026.
Rastogi, originally from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, joined the Haryana cadre on 20 August 1990, and was first posted as Sub Divisional Officer (Civil) to Narnaul in August 1992. He served as Deputy Commissioner in Hisar, Panipat, and Gurugram, the last posting coinciding with his charge as Chief Administrator of the Shri Mata Sheetla Devi Shrine Board. His tenures as Excise and Taxation Commissioner (2009–2012) and Director General of Town and Country Planning (2012–2015) stood out in a career otherwise distinguished more by steady competence than headline-making decisions. He served as Principal Secretary for Finance and Planning before being elevated to Additional Chief Secretary rank in 2021.
His nearly 36 years in the IAS, built on a reputation for financial discipline and low-key administration, have made him a trusted hand for successive Haryana governments, and now, apparently, an indispensable one.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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