HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Corbett’s top aide apparently is leaving.

Two people said that they each were told by separate senior administration officials that chief of staff Bill Ward is leaving.

It is not clear whether Ward, 60, wanted to leave the job or whether he was being forced out. It also was not clear when Ward would leave.

Ward did not return telephone messages left at his office.

Corbett’s spokesman Kevin Harley said this morning that he could not comment on questions about Ward, a former state and federal prosecutor and longtime friend and colleague of Corbett’s from Pittsburgh.

When Corbett tapped Ward for the post in January 2011, he called Ward “a skilled lawyer and a man of unquestioned integrity.”

One of the people who spoke said Ward will be replaced by Corbett’s top legal adviser, Stephen Aichele, the former chairman of the Saul Ewing law firm and husband of Corbett’s secretary of state, Carol Aichele.