Reportedly, the duo—Vandana Sharma (Deputy Adviser) and Harendra Kumar (Joint Adviser)—have officially returned to office after a high-level review committee quietly overturned their terminations. However, the third official caught in the same dragnet, Vishwanath Bisoi (Deputy Adviser), faces a protracted wait as he chose to challenge the executive order before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). Bisoi’s re-entry is now entirely contingent upon the judicial outcome of CAT that keeps him in a strategic wait-and-watch position.

The three officers were prematurely retired under the stringent Rule 56(J) of the Fundamental Rules during the tenure of Dr. B. V. R. Subrahmanyam as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NITI Aayog. Rule 56(J) empowers the government to retire public servants in the "public interest" based on performance and integrity reviews.