Tuesday, January 3 2006 14:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today (Jan 3, 2006) gave a clean chit to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ramashray Prasad Singh, embroiled in a controversy, saying, '' It is nothing serious''.

Singh had been caught on camera asking state's home secretary to shift a physically challenged employee of the state public service commission facing corruption charges from jail to hospital last evening.

Singh merely asked the Home Secretary to shift the accused, who is physically challenged, to the hospital for better treatment. There is nothing wrong about it, he told reporters.

The Chief Minister, who also holds the home portfolio, said the accused, Bhanu Prakash, an analyst programmer in the computer section of the BPSC, had been arrested by the Vigilance Bureau, which does not grant undue favour to anybody.

The minister met me personally to explain the situation and there is nothing more to say in this regard. There is no question of the Vigilance department favouring anybody, he said when asked whether he would ask the minister to resign voluntarily or sack him.

The Vigilance Bureau had on December 29 last year arrested BPSC Chairman Ram Singhasan Singh, Bhanu Prakash and seven others for their alleged involvement in irregularities in selection o 184 candidates for elevation to the Bihar administrative service in a limited competitive examination in 2003.

Prakash is a relative of former Bihar Congress Minister O P Lal.

The minister was shown by a private tv channel last night speaking to home secretary H C Sirohi on phone asking him to shift Prakash, lodged in Beur Jail here, to a hospital as he was physically challenged and not keeping well.