Defending the state government's media policy, the CM said

the government has never put pressure or influenced media houses to write news reports in a particular manner. "No censorship has been imposed on the media in Bihar and the media is absolutely free to write whatever it desires," Kumar said. He asked under what rules and on whose complaint that the PCI chairman found it appropriate to form the fact finding team to probe the alleged press censorship in Bihar. Kumar also appeared to question the integrity of the members of the fact finding panel saying that he was aware of the type of requests that some media persons made to the government. He asked the PCI chairman to explain under what provisions of the law that the report was released or leaked to the media and sections of people to run down his government in a motivated manner. Kumar said he had initially chosen not to react to Katju's repeated charge that were made at fora not appropriate for making' political and motivated' comments against a democratically-elected government and persons holding such posts, but let go his fury after the opposition raked up the issue. The chief minister defended the state government's advertisement policy and role of the Information and Public Relations Department and said that it has remained consistent over the years. Katju had visited Bihar on two occasions last year and lambasted the chief minister for press censorship and coercive attitude towards the media and media persons to paint Bihar in a glorified manner. Kumar's attack on the PCI chairman came days after NDA leader Arun Jaitley hit out at him for exceeding his constitutional brief by attacking Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and questioning his prime ministerial credentials.