Tuesday, January 3 2006 13:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: A senior Bihar minister in the Nitish Kumar Government, which came to power on the anti-c. He is in the eye of a storm after being caught on camera asking a top Government official to show leniency to an accused lodged in jail.

The expose comes close on the heels of sting operations showing mps taking bribes for asking questions and favouring contractors for execution of mplad projects.

Ramashray Prasad Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, was yesterday (Jan 2, 2006) night shown on a private tv channel asking the state's home secretary to shift Bhanu Prakash, an analyst programmer in the computer division of the Bihar Public Service Commission, arrested recently on charge of corruption, to a hospital.

Singh was shown on ETV (Bihar) speaking to Home Secretary H C Sirohi, requesting him to shift Prakash, relative of a former Bihar Minister O P Lal, from Beur jail to a hospital as he belonged to a respectable family and is handicapped.

Prakash was arrested along with BPSC chairman Ram Singhasan Singh and others for his alleged involvement inirregularities in selection of 184 candidates for elevation to the Bihar administrative service through a limited competitive examination in 2003.

When contacted by sources for his comments this morning, Singh said he had spoken to Sirohi for proper treatment of Prakash but asserted he had also said that he (minister) had nothing to do with the case in which the law would take its own course.

"Since the issue also involved the human rights of the jailed accused, I merely told the home secretary to ensure proper treatment for him as Prakash is physically challenged," he said.