New Delhi, July 12:Manmohan Singh has instructed his ministers to appoint non-governmental personal staff only after Intelligence Bureau (IB) verifies their "character and antecedents".
The order follows instances of ministers appointing such staff without mandatory IB clearances. The department of personnel and training (DoPT), which is with the Prime Minister, oversees appointments.
Official sources said in several cases, ministers brought in staff without verification, presenting the DoPT with a fait accompli.
There have also been instances of IB reports being ignored despite indications the person appointed may be unsuitable for handling sensitive government work. Some of the staff were also found to have submitted fake educational documents.
"The DoPT will not entertain any request for ante-dating (with retrospective effect) of appointment of such personnel," says the order sent to all ministries on July 7. The IB has been asked to complete the checks in a fortnight.
The personal staff receive salaries from the government. But the latest order does not cover government employees handpicked as aides.
Some of these personal staff members have been known to wield enormous clout. An example was Pramod Mahajan's aide Bibek Maitra when the late BJP leader was one of the most powerful members in the NDA government.
Maitra died mysteriously, allegedly from a drug overdose, within months of Mahajan's murder by his brother in 2006.
Nachiketa Kapur, named in the WikiLeaks cables for his alleged role in the 2008 trust motion, was another example.
He misled then minister Renuka Chowdhary into recruiting him as a member of her personal staff. He also made it to the Commonwealth Games committee but was sacked after his degrees were found dubious.
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