he Andhra Pradesh government on Tuesday appointed Shayam Sunder Prasad Yadav as the new Director-General of Police. He succeeds the incumbent DGP M A Basith, who is retiring on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy cleared SSP Yadav's name for the top post in the Andhra Pradesh Police a day before the superannuation of Basith. Yadav supersedes two of his own batch mates from the 1972 batch of the Indian Police Service -- P V Naidu and M L Kumawat.

SSP Yadav, who has been the director-general of the Anti-Corruption Bureau for the last two years, hails from Bihar.

Though all the three police officers belong to the same batch and the same cadre, both Naidu and Kumawat are older than Yadav. Kumawat, who is presently special secretary in the Union Home Ministry, will retire in July 2009. 

Apparently, the state government took into consideration the fact that Naidu has only eight months of service left whereas Kumawat is not willing to come back to the state to serve as the DGP.

Incidentally, this is the third time in 11 years that the DGP's appointment has raised the heckles of IPS officers since the appointee has superseded his seniors. In November 1996, H J Dora was appointed as DGP by the then Telugu Desam government. He had
superseded his seniors V S Ravi, A P Rajan, V P B Nair and V Appa Rao.