diff --git a/common/CHANGES.txt b/common/CHANGES.txt
index 8dcd295c2c..c6dcc363de 100644
--- a/common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -248,6 +248,9 @@ Trunk (unreleased changes)
     to Data(In,Out)putBuffer for byte[].  Merge from yahoo-merge branch,
     -r 1079163.  Fix missing Apache license headers. (Chris Douglas via mattf)
 
+    HADOOP-7361. Provide an option, -overwrite/-f, in put and copyFromLocal
+    shell commands.  (Uma Maheswara Rao G via szetszwo)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
   
     HADOOP-7333. Performance improvement in PureJavaCrc32. (Eric Caspole
diff --git a/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CommandWithDestination.java b/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CommandWithDestination.java
index c09bb37a7a..7a6251d3a7 100644
--- a/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CommandWithDestination.java
+++ b/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CommandWithDestination.java
@@ -38,7 +38,12 @@ abstract class CommandWithDestination extends FsCommand {
   protected PathData dst;
   protected boolean overwrite = false;
   
-  // TODO: commands should implement a -f to enable this
+  /**
+   * 
+   * This method is used to enable the force(-f)  option while copying the files.
+   * 
+   * @param flag true/false
+   */
   protected void setOverwrite(boolean flag) {
     overwrite = flag;
   }
diff --git a/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CopyCommands.java b/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CopyCommands.java
index 32c71c32b1..261a1a3015 100644
--- a/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CopyCommands.java
+++ b/common/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/CopyCommands.java
@@ -94,15 +94,16 @@ static class Cp extends CommandWithDestination {
     
     @Override
     protected void processOptions(LinkedList<String> args) throws IOException {
-      CommandFormat cf = new CommandFormat(2, Integer.MAX_VALUE);
+      CommandFormat cf = new CommandFormat(2, Integer.MAX_VALUE, "f");
       cf.parse(args);
+      setOverwrite(cf.getOpt("f"));
       getRemoteDestination(args);
     }
 
     @Override
     protected void processPath(PathData src, PathData target)
     throws IOException {
-      if (!FileUtil.copy(src.fs, src.path, target.fs, target.path, false, getConf())) {
+      if (!FileUtil.copy(src.fs, src.path, target.fs, target.path, false, overwrite, getConf())) {
         // we have no idea what the error is...  FileUtils masks it and in
         // some cases won't even report an error
         throw new PathIOException(src.toString());
@@ -216,8 +217,9 @@ public static class Put extends CommandWithDestination {
 
     @Override
     protected void processOptions(LinkedList<String> args) throws IOException {
-      CommandFormat cf = new CommandFormat(1, Integer.MAX_VALUE);
+      CommandFormat cf = new CommandFormat(1, Integer.MAX_VALUE, "f");
       cf.parse(args);
+      setOverwrite(cf.getOpt("f"));
       getRemoteDestination(args);
     }
 
@@ -246,7 +248,7 @@ protected void processArguments(LinkedList<PathData> args)
     @Override
     protected void processPath(PathData src, PathData target)
     throws IOException {
-      target.fs.copyFromLocalFile(false, false, src.path, target.path);
+      target.fs.copyFromLocalFile(false, overwrite, src.path, target.path);
     }
 
     /** Copies from stdin to the destination file. */