Section 24 — Officers and Employees of Board

The Chairperson and Members Sections 19 through 22 describe are the Board's decision-makers, not its entire workforce. Section 24 is where the rest of the Board's staff — the officers and employees who actually process complaints, run the digital-office infrastructure Section 28 requires, and support day-to-day functioning — get brought on.

Staffing with the Central Government's prior sign-off

The Board may, with the previous approval of the Central Government, appoint such officers and employees as it considers necessary for the efficient discharge of its functions under the Act, on such terms and conditions of appointment and service as may be prescribed. Two things stand out in that wording. First, "previous approval" means the Central Government's sign-off has to come before the appointment, not as a formality afterward — the Board can't hire first and seek approval later. Second, both the terms and conditions of that appointment and service are themselves subject to being prescribed, so even the Board's own staffing decisions run through a framework the Central Government or Rules set, not one the Board designs unilaterally.

Why this matters in practice

A regulator's operational capacity — how quickly it can process breach intimations under Section 8(6), inquire into complaints under Section 28, or scrutinise correspondence the way Section 26(b) contemplates — depends directly on whether it's actually adequately staffed. Because every hire needs prior Central Government approval, the pace at which the Board can scale its own workforce isn't entirely within the Board's own control, which is worth factoring into any expectation of how quickly the Board might be able to work through a growing caseload as awareness of the Act — and the volume of complaints and breach intimations it receives — increases.

Illustration: if the Board found itself needing a larger technical team to handle a rising volume of breach intimations under Section 8(6), it couldn't simply expand its own headcount — it would first need the Central Government's approval for those specific appointments, on terms and conditions themselves subject to being prescribed.

How Section 24 connects to the rest of the Act

Section 27's powers and functions, and Section 28's inquiry procedure, are what the officers and employees appointed under this section actually carry out day to day. Section 25 immediately follows with a consequence of holding one of these positions — being deemed a public servant while acting under the Act.