Indian Administrative Service official Neera Yadav, who was removed from the position of Uttar Pradesh chief secretary on serious charges of corruption by the country's apex court approximately two years ago, sought voluntary premature retirement on Saturday.

While she reportedly did not assign any reason for seeking retirement, insiders say that Yadav took the step as she was apprehensive about bigger problems for her in the future.

"I would not be surprised if there was some design on her part to dilute the trial that she was facing in a special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Ghaziabad," remarked a retired IAS officer, who had played a lead role in a secret ballot carried out by the UP IAS Association in 1997, to identify the three most corrupt bureaucrats in the state.

Yadav had garnered the second highest number of votes in the secret ballot, which was an unique exercise undertaken for the first time in the country by members of the elite service.

An officer of the 1971 batch, Yadav was due to retire in June 2008. She was currently holding the office of the chairperson of the State Bureau of Public Enterprises.

Yadav was charge-sheeted by the CBI in a multi-crore land scam during her stint as chairperson of NOIDA.

She is the second former UP chief secretary in the dock for allegedly amassing huge wealth and assets, far beyond her known legitimate sources of income. Her predecessor Akhand Pratap Singh, of the 1967 batch of IAS, was charge sheeted by the CBI on Friday.

Both Yadav and Singh had to step down from the chief secretary's office, on account of separate PILs moved against them by a Lucknow based journalist, before the apex court.

Yadav also received much flak for allegedly manipulating the departmental inquiry against her. The inquiry, running parallel to the CBI probe, gave her a clean chit.

Significantly, the clean chit was granted by Aparmita Prasad Singh, another highly controversial IAS officer who has a track record of exonerating every tainted bureaucrat he has ever investigated.

On Thursday, Yadav was ousted by her own colleagues from the coveted position of the  president of the UP IAS Association  - a position she had acquired a few weeks back  through allegedly manipulative means.

Some of the officials responsible for her ouster felt that her elevation to the top position in the association was giving a bad name to the prestigious civil service.

A senior IAS officer, who spearheaded the unique ballot to identify the three most corrupt IAS officers in the state, said, "Yadav's decision would serve as an example to other tainted officers, who are responsible for tarnishing the image of the prestigious service."