CBI joint director in-charge of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, VV Lakshmi Narayana, who sent several high-profile political reputations on a tailspin, is on his way out. The top CBI sleuth in the state has been transferred to Maharashtra.

The transfer, opposed by many anti-corruption crusaders in Andhra Pradesh, has been on the cards for a while as Lakshmi Narayana himself was said to be keen on returning to his parent cadre.

For now, the agency’s joint director for Tamil Nadu, Arunachalam, has been entrusted with the responsibility of Andhra Pradesh. He will hold the additional charge till the CBI headquarters find a suitable successor to Lakshminarayana.

Lakshmi Narayana, an IPS officer from Maharashtra cadre, was posted as the CBI’s regional boss in Andhra Pradesh in 2006. He became famous, and attracted criticism as well from some quarters, through his association with three high-profiles cases: the APIIC-Emaar MGF scandal, the disproportionate assets case against YS Jaganmohan Reddy and the illegal mining scandal by mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy.

A tough taskmaster and a go-getter, Lakshmi Narayana became the envy of the IPS fraternity when he took these cases to a decisive stage in quick time. Under his leadership, the CBI brought to book several high-profile politicians and bureaucrats, including Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Gali Janardhan Reddy and former Andhra Pradesh minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana. All of them were eventually arrested.

The officer’s reputation of cracking complex cases with ease also saw him spearhead probes into the sensational Gujarat fake encounter case besides a few others in Karnataka. Keeping in view his soaring image in the midst of the probes, the Andhra Pradesh government provided him ‘Y’ category security in April 2012.