Veerappa Moily gets education qualification relaxed for his peon

NEW DELHI: Union Minister Veerappa Moily preferred to retain a peon, who has been with him during previous postings, in his personal staff by getting a relaxation in his educational qualification from the Prime Minister.

The case is of Shubh Nandan Kumar, whom Moily wanted to retain in personnel staff after change in his portfolio from Corporate Affairs Ministry to Petroleum Ministry but the peon's educational qualifications did not match the requirement, an RTI response has revealed.

The educational qualification for the erstwhile Group-D employees, who now come under Group-C, was prescribed as eighth standard but it was raised to 10th standard on the recommendation of sixth pay commission.

The DoPT through notification dated April 2010 revised the eligibility norms in the recruitment rules for the posts, which were earlier in Group 'D' and have now been placed in Group 'C', as 10th standard.

While powers to relax age limit of personal staff of ministers have been delegated to Cabinet Secretariat, any relief in educational qualification could only be given by the Prime Minister, according to an order dated October 23, 2001.

Kumar's matter reached Prime Minister Manmohan Singh through Cabinet Secretary who recommended relaxation of educational qualification parameter in the case.

Following the recommendations, Singh approved the appointment and also mooted proposal to delegate the power to relax the educational qualifications with regards to appointment of the personal staff, according to information provided to Subhash Agrawal.