Kalyan Sundaram

Kuthur Vaidyanathan Kalyan Sundaram (11 May 1904 – 23 September 1992), also referred as K. V. K. Sundaram, was an Indian civil servant, who holds the record as the first Law Secretary (1948–58) of independent India and second Chief Election Commissioner of India (20 December 1958 – 30 September 1967). He also chaired the Fifth Law Commission of India for the period 1968–71. He was the principal author of the White Paper which was used to guide the formation of India into states drawn along linguistic lines after its independence. For this, he received personal thanks and high praise from Lord Louis Mountbatten. He was also a Sanskrit scholar, translating for English audiences the works of the Sanskrit writer Kalidasa.

Personal life and education Sundaram was native to , a village located in the then-Madras Presidency. The British bureaucracy governing India wanted to reorganise the existing structures of India into linguistically devised states, mindful of the existing boundaries of the hundreds of Princely States which the British did not control. They commissioned Sundaram in 1936 to prepare this document. This White Paper became the base used to reorganise India into states; Patel and V P Menon would also use it to convince the princes to cede with the Indian union for an agreed pension. Sundaram himself was able to oversee much of this work, as he rose to the position of Law Secretary in 1948 when Sir George Spence—who had years before specifically requested Sundaram for the office in spite of the seniority of other eligible candidates—stepped down.

Later life and death In 1958, after his term as the Law Secretary ended, Sundaram became the second person to hold the position of Chief Election Commissioner.