Visiting Chanchalguda Central Jail as Andhra Pradesh home secretary, he had received a guard of honour.
Just two months later, senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer B.P. Acharya on Thursday found himself in the same jail as an undertrial.
A special court sent Acharya to jail in the Emaar-APIIC township scam in which he is the prime accused.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which arrested the 1983-batch IAS officer on Monday, presented him before the special court dealing with the CBI cases. He was remanded in judicial custody till Feb 15.
Acharya complained that he was forcibly discharged from the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) Wednesday night but the judge said jail authorities would look after his health.
Acharya was later shifted to the Chanchalguda Central Jail, where another IAS officer, Y. Srilakshmi, former Karnataka minister G. Janardhana Reddy and other industrialists and bureaucrats are already lodged in various cases.
The IAS officer, who was admitted to the NIMS Tuesday due to chest pain, again complained of fever and body pain after reaching the jail. Jail superintendent Keshava Naidu told reporters that Acharya was not well and the doctors were keeping a watch on his condition. The official indicated that Achraya may be shifted to the Osmania Hospital.
Earlier, Keshava Naidu said Acharya would be treated like an ordinary prisoner.
"There are no special privileges for IAS officers. Since there are no directions from the court that he be treated as special class inmate, he would be treated like others," he said.
"He had then come as our principal secretary (home). That is a different issue. Now he has come like any other inmate," the jail official said when asked about Acharya's previous visit to jail to review facilities for prisoners.
The CBI Wednesday filed a charge sheet in the case against Acharya and 11 others, formally charging them with cheating, criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and corruption.
As then vice chairman and managing director of Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), Acharya allegedly in collusion with Emaar Properties and its associate companies had diluted APIIC's equity in an integrated township project in Hyderabad.
APIIC's equity in the joint venture with Emaar was brought down from 26 per cent to six per cent causing huge losses to the government.