The Chief Election Commissioner heads the Election Commission of India, a body constitutionally empowered to conduct free and fair elections to the national and state legislatures. Chief Election Commissioner of India is usually a member of the Indian Civil Service and mostly from the Indian Administrative Service.

It is very difficult to remove the authority of the Chief Election Commissioner once elected by the President, as two-thirds of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha need to vote against him for disorderly conduct or improper actions.

Name Tenure
Sukumar Sen 21 March 1950-19 December 1958
K.V.K. Sundaram 20 December 1958-30 September 1967
S.P. Sen Verma 01 October 1967-30 September 1972
Dr Nagendra Singh 01 October 1972-6 February 1973
T. Swaminathan 07 February 1973-17 June 1977
S.L. Shakdhar 18 June 1977-17 June 1982
R.K. Trivedi 18 June 1982-31 December 1985
R.V.S. Peri Sastri 01 January 1986-25 November 1990
Smt V.S. Rama Devi 26 November 1990-11 December 1990
T.N. Seshan 12 December 1990-11 December 1996
M.S. Gill 12 December 1996-13 June 2001
J.M. Lyngdoh 14 June 2001 – 7 February 2004
T.S. Krishna Murthy 08 February 2004 – 15 May 2005
B.B. Tandon 16 May 2005 – 29 June 2006
N. Gopalaswamy 30 June 2006 – 20 April 2009
Navin Chawla 21 April 2009 – 29 July 2010
S.Y. Qureshi 30 July 2010 – 10 June 2012
V. S. Sampath 11 June 2012 – Incumbent