Amidst a controversy over his letter to Railway Minister Lalu Prasad seeking the transfer of an official, Bihar Governor Buta Singh has directed all the departments to route files through the chief secretary, clipping the wings of his advisor Arun Pathak, who is considered to be close to the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief.
He also stripped Pathak, who was the chief secretary when Lalu was the chief minister in the early 90s, of his official powers by withdrawing key departments, including Home, Finance, Power and Personnel, from him.
"Now all the files to the governor must be routed through the office of the chief secretary," a notification issued by the state cabinet and coordination department in Patna late on Friday night said.
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"It has come to my notice that there were certain grey areas in the procedure of moving files by the advisor...I am withdrawing the work allocated till further orders," the order said.
Talking to PTI over phone, Chief Secretary G S Kang, who is currently in New Delhi, confirmed that the Raj Bhavan had made it clear that the files should not be sent directly to the governor but through him with a note and comments.
Under the new arrangement, the department heads and secretaries, who were under Pathak, would send their files to him (Pathak) and after his comments, the files would return to the respective departments and then be sent to the chief secretary, who after perusal, would forward those the to Raj Bhavan, official sources said.
