An IAS officer deputed as a general observer by the Election Commission has been suspended after a decision by him led to the inspection of a helicopter that ferried Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Odisha on Tuesday.

Election Commission spokesperson Sheyphali B. Sharan said Special Protection Group (SPG) “protectees” are excluded from such inspections. Clarification is awaited on the matter.

“It was brought to the notice of the commission by the state election machinery that the general observer for Sambalpur, Mr Mohammad Mohsin, acted in violation of existing instructions of the commission. It has been laid down that SPG protectees are excluded from checking,” the spokesperson said in New Delhi.

“Taking cognisance of the matter and based on available facts, the observer was placed under suspension and removed from observer duty.”

The commission has sent deputy election commissioner Dharmendra Sharma to visit Sambalpur on a fact-finding tour and asked him to furnish a report in two days.

Mohsin, an IAS officer from Karnataka, could not be contacted by this newspaper.

When the model code of conduct is in place, general observers are empowered to ask the district electoral officer or the returning officer to check vehicles if they arouse suspicion, usually about cash being ferried.

Some government officials had told this newspaper earlier in the day that they were under the impression that all vehicles came under the purview of the general observer.

Sharan had cited an order dated April 10, 2014, to say that SPG protectees were “excluded from checking”. The Prime Minister is guarded by the SPG.

The 2014 order (464/INST/2014/EPS) to all chief electoral officers from the then EC secretary, Sumit Mukherjee, exempts “the Prime Minister and other political personalities” from the ban on the use of official vehicles for “campaigning, electioneering and election-related travel work” in view of the “threat to their lives”.

The only mention of the SPG in the order is in Paragraph 10(a). It says: “The commission would like to make it clear that if it has any material to doubt that the assessment of security requirements made by the authorities under the Special Protection Group Act, 1988, or any other special enactment/instruction of the government have been manifestly or unduly excessive with the intention of promoting indirectly the electoral interests of a particular party or candidate, the commission will bring the matter to the notice of the concerned government for immediate and appropriate corrective steps.”

Asked for a clarification by this paper, Sharan said she would check with the Election Commission on Thursday.