Government brings in a boss over babu

HYDERABAD: The state government finally had its way on keeping Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director-general D Boobathi Babu under check by posting senior IPS officer B Prasada Rao above him. Though Babu has not been shifted out, he will now work under Prasada Rao. This arrangement is the first of its kind in the history of ACB.Sources privy to the discussions prior to this decision said the government considered a proposal to transfer Boobathi Babu, but preferred this gambit.For several months now, Babu has aggressively led the ACB probe into liquor syndicates in the state, resisting moves to shift out officers of his choice or bring in those not to his liking.But with the courts monitoring the probe, transferring Boobathi Babu would have attracted adverse attention and so the government took recourse to a cadre rule that it had ignored earlier, barring two instances.Though the ACB chief’s post is a DG cadre post (meaning only DG rank officers can be posted there), successive governments have posted only additional DGPs as ACB chiefs, except in the case of S S P Yadav and Umesh Kumar, both DGs. The new ACB boss, B Prasada Rao, is a 1979 batch IPS officer who has been promoted to the rank of DG.There was never a post for an additional DGP rank officer in the ACB (earlier postings of ACB chiefs used to mention that the incumbent would hold full additional charge of the post of DG, ACB) but now the government has created one, though no formal orders have been issued to this affect.As per cadre rules, the posts of ACB DG, and DG, Vigilance & Enforcement (V&E) are both DG cadre posts besides the director-general of police. Though the government has now chosen to have a DG rank officer as ACB chief, V&E continues to be occupied by an an additional DGP, A Sivanarayana.