Chandigarh, July 1 -- The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) of the central government on Tuesday approved a fresh six-month extension in service for Haryana chief secretary Anurag Rastogi, allowing the 1990-batch IAS officer to continue as the state's top bureaucrat till December 31, 2026. Rastogi, who was due to retire on June 30, 2026 after completing a one-year extension in service granted in June 2025, has become one of the few chief secretaries to receive consecutive extensions in service cumulatively extending his tenure to 22 months. In recent memory, the closest parallel is 1984 batch UP cadre officer, Durga Shankar Mishra who was repatriated from the central government to his parent cadre in 2021 and appointed as Uttar Pradesh chief secretary two days before his retirement was granted three extensions totalling to 30 months by the Centre. The state government had on June 8, 2026 proposed to the central government to grant a second extension for a six month period from July 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026 for Rastogi. The fresh extension in service has been given in relaxation of Rule 16(1) All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958 by invoking Rule 3 of the All India Services (Conditions of Service-Residuary Matters) Rules, 1960 to grant Rastogi another six-month extension, as per an order issued by department of personnel and training (DoPT) in Union ministry of personnel. Rule 3 empowers the central government to dispense with or relax the requirements of rules framed under the All India Services Act, 1951. The Union government, on June 19, 2025, had first approved the Haryana government's proposal to extend Rastogi's service by one year from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. As Rule 16(1) of the All-India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958 permits only a six-month extension in service for a chief secretary, the Centre had in 2025 relaxed the provision by invoking Rule 3 of the All India Services (Conditions of Service-Residuary Matters) Rules, 1960 to grant Rastogi an unprecedented 12-month extension. Rastogi was appointed Haryana chief secretary in February 2025 after 1989-batch IAS officer Vivek Joshi took voluntary retirement upon being appointed an Election Commissioner. The Nayab Singh Saini government appointed Rastogi as Joshi's successor, departing from the convention of appointing the senior-most officer in the cadre. According to the Haryana IAS gradation list, Sudhir Rajpal of the 1990 batch is the senior-most officer, followed by Sumita Misra, Anurag Rastogi and Raja Sekhar Vundru. However, the inter se seniority among the 1990-batch officers has been under dispute and remains unadjudicated....