STRAIGHT FOUR YEARS & STILL CONTINUING IN SAME SUB-DIVISION: TWO HCS OFFICERS SET RARE TENURE RECORD IN HARYANA

DARSHAN KUMAR IN AMBALA CITY AND RAJENDRA KUMAR IN SIRSA COMPLETE FOUR CONTINUOUS YEARS AS SDO (CIVIL)/SDM

Face2News/Chandigarh 

At a time when transfers of Sub-Divisional Officers (Civil) — popularly known as SDMs — in Haryana often take place within a year, and sometimes even within months, two Haryana Civil Service (HCS) officers have quietly entered a rare administrative record by completing four consecutive years in the same sub-division.

The two officers are Darshan Kumar, HCS, in Ambala City and Rajendra Kumar, HCS, in Sirsa. Both belong to the 2019 batch of HCS (Executive Branch) and were posted as SDO (Civil) of their respective sub-divisions in September 2022.

According to Advocate Hemant Kumar of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, who researches and analyses Haryana’s administrative structure and functioning, the two officers are presently the only such HCS officers under the current government who have completed four continuous years as SDO (Civil) in one sub-division.

The official Ambala district website presently lists Darshan Kumar, HCS, as Sub-Divisional Officer (Civil), Ambala City, confirming that he continues to hold the assignment.

Official designation is SDO (Civil), not SDM
An interesting administrative distinction highlighted by Hemant Kumar is that the official designation of the sub-divisional officer in Haryana is “Sub-Divisional Officer (Civil)” or SDO (Civil).

The expression Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) is, however, widely used in official and public discourse for the officer exercising magisterial functions at the sub-divisional level.

The term SDM also finds statutory recognition in criminal-procedure law, including the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which came into force on July 1, 2024.

Both came into HCS through Register A-I The two officers share another unusual similarity.

Neither Darshan Kumar nor Rajendra Kumar entered HCS through the direct recruitment route. Both joined the HCS in 2019 through Register A-I, the channel through which eligible officers from the revenue establishment, including Tehsildars/District Revenue Officers, are inducted into the HCS cadre.

Rajendra Kumar has been functioning as SDO (Civil), Sirsa, while also holding the additional assignment of Estate Officer, HSVP, Sirsa, according to the information cited by Hemant Kumar.

Darshan Kumar, during his Ambala tenure, has also handled the additional charge of Estate Officer, HSVP, Ambala, from time to time. He is not holding that charge at present.

In July 2026, however, the Haryana Government appointed him as a nodal officer in connection with land acquisition/management relating to the proposed IMT at Ambala.
Four elections in around 18 months — another distinctive chapter
Darshan Kumar’s four-year Ambala tenure also coincides with an unusually intensive run of election-related assignments.

According to Hemant Kumar, between April 2024 and September 2025, Darshan Kumar performed election-related responsibilities in four separate elections in Ambala:• Lok Sabha Election 2024 — ARO:
During the 18th Lok Sabha elections, he served as Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) for Ambala City Assembly segment.

• Haryana Assembly Election 2024 — RO:
He was subsequently appointed Returning Officer (RO) for Ambala City Assembly Constituency No. 5. The official Chief Electoral Officer, Haryana record lists Darshan Kumar, HCS, as the Returning Officer for Ambala City.
• Ambala Municipal Corporation Mayor By-election 2025 — RO:
He was also entrusted with the responsibility of Returning Officer for the Ambala Municipal Corporation Mayor by-election.
• Ambala Zila Parishad Chairman Election 2025 — RO:
In September 2025, he again performed the role of Returning Officer for the election to the vacant post of Ambala Zila Parishad Chairman.
Thus, within roughly a year and a half, his election-related assignments covered one Lok Sabha election, one Assembly election, a Municipal Corporation Mayor by-election and a Zila Parishad election.
Why was he not RO for the 2026 Municipal Corporation elections?
A contrasting development came during the April-May 2026 general elections to the Ambala Municipal Corporation, when Darshan Kumar was not assigned the responsibility of Returning Officer.
Hemant Kumar said he had at that time approached the State Election Commission seeking that Darshan Kumar should not be appointed RO, referring to the election authorities’ transfer/posting-related considerations concerning officials who have remained posted at one place for a prolonged period.
For the 2026 Municipal Corporation elections, the RO responsibility was instead assigned to Virat, HCS, then Additional Deputy Commissioner.
When two-to-three-year tenures were once common
Hemant Kumar points out that, historically, two-to-three-year tenures of HCS officers as SDO (Civil)/SDMs in Haryana sub-divisions were not unusual.
In recent years, however, prolonged postings in important sub-divisions have become comparatively less frequent despite the expansion of the HCS cadre.
The pattern is also different in the case of directly recruited IAS officers, who generally receive sub-divisional field assignments for limited periods as part of their training and field experience.
Mukesh Ahuja had another Ambala record
The four-year continuous tenure of Darshan Kumar also brings into focus the earlier Ambala record associated with former IAS officer Mukesh Kumar Ahuja.
According to Hemant Kumar, Ahuja, a 2009-batch IAS officer who retired earlier this year, had served as SDM, Ambala, on four different occasions during his career as an HCS officer, with his aggregate tenure in the post extending beyond nine and a half years.
One of those spells lasted nearly four years — about two months short of four years.
At that time, Ambala Cantonment was not a separate sub-division and its area formed part of Ambala City sub-division.
With Darshan Kumar now completing four continuous years at the helm of Ambala City sub-division, Hemant Kumar says the present tenure has crossed the earlier benchmark of a single continuous Ambala SDM posting.
A rare case of continuity in Haryana’s field administration
The four-year uninterrupted postings of Darshan Kumar in Ambala City and Rajendra Kumar in Sirsa stand out against the relatively frequent movement of field-level administrative officers in Haryana.
Their tenures provide an unusual example of administrative continuity at the sub-divisional level, while Darshan Kumar’s parallel record of election-related responsibilities adds another distinctive dimension to the four-year posting.