Q.Why does EC have powers to issue orders to govt employees on election duty / immunity from CEC removal / power to cancel unfair elections? What if these didn't exist?

Each of the three powers protects the EC from a specific way its authority could otherwise be undermined. …

Power over government employees on election duty. During elections, the Election Commission takes control of the administrative machinery — it can transfer officials, block transfers, and act against officials who fail to remain non-partisan while on election duty. Why this matters: the officials actually running polling booths, maintaining order, and reporting results are normally employees of the very State or Central government whose ruling party is contesting the election. Without EC control over them for the election period, a ruling party could quietly use its own administrative machinery — sympathetic postings, selective transfers, lax enforcement against its own workers — to tilt the ground in its favour, even while the formal vote-counting rules stayed fair on paper.

The CEC's immunity from removal. The Chief Election Commissioner can only be removed if both Houses of Parliament recommend it by special majority — a ruling party's Council of Ministers, on its own, cannot remove the CEC. Why this matters: without this protection, a government unhappy with an EC decision (say, cancelling an election it expected to win, or penalising its own candidates) could simply remove the CEC and appoint someone more compliant. That single threat alone would be enough to make even a well-intentioned CEC hesitate before ever ruling against the ruling party's interest — the immunity exists precisely to remove that pressure.

The power to cancel an unfair election. The EC can postpone or cancel a poll — in a constituency, a State, or nationally — if it judges the atmosphere unfit for a free and fair election (as it actually did in Gujarat in 2002, a decision the Supreme Court upheld). Why this matters: without this power, the EC could only observe and report problems after the fact, with no way to actually stop a compromised election from proceeding and producing a result. This power is what turns the EC from a mere referee who calls fouls into one that can actually stop play when the game itself has broken down. …