Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is learnt to have given in-principle approval for the appointment of Gaurav Yadav as the regular Director General of Police (DGP) of Punjab, paving the way for the state to finally have a permanent police chief after over four years of an additional-charge arrangement.The Department of Home had put up the file relating to the appointment before the Chief Minister. Mann has given his in-principle nod, though the file had not been returned to the department till Thursday evening.A senior government source said the formal announcement could be made before the October 13 deadline set by the Punjab and Haryana High Court for the state to submit its compliance report.Yadav, a 1992-batch IPS officer, has been functioning as the officiating DGP since July 2022. His name is among the three officers empanelled by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for appointment as the head of the Punjab Police. The other two officers on the panel are Sharad Satya Chauhan and Harpreet Singh Sidhu.The appointment remained pending since the UPSC panel was received by the Punjab Government in July. The issue subsequently came under the scrutiny of the High Court following a PIL filed by advocate Nikhil Thamman, who challenged the prolonged continuation of an additional-charge arrangement for the state police chief.On October 1, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor directed the state to take an appropriate decision on appointing a regular DGP. The court also asked Chief Secretary KAP Sinha to place a compliance affidavit before it by the next hearing on October 13.