Palghar deputy collector held for accepting ₹50K bribe

Mumbai deputy collector arrested for accepting ₹50,000 bribe to grant land purchase permission to a tribal person; ACB laid a trap and confirmed the solicitation.

Mumbai: A deputy collector of Palghar district was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹50,000 to grant permission to a tribal person to purchase land, an official said on Wednesday.

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After receiving a tip-off, the ACB laid a trap and sent a tribal community member to obtain a Notice Objection Certificate (NOC) from the district collector’s office on August 1. During this visit, a clerk allegedly solicited a bribe of ₹50,000 from the complainant on behalf of deputy collector (general administration) Sanjeev Jadhavar, the ACB official said.

“We didn’t ask the local Palghar unit to carry the trap but instead to make it successful we took the help of the Mumbai unit,” said an ACB official.

According to the officials, the complainant wanted to purchase land belonging to a tribe. Under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, non-tribals are required to obtain prior permission from the Collector’s office before purchasing land belonging to a tribal.

Accordingly, the complainant had in September 2022 filed an application with the Collector office for NOC for transferring the tribal land. On August 1, 2024, when the complainant went to the office of the collector, a peon, identified only as Deshmukh, told him that he would have to pay ₹50,000 to get the work done,” said an ACB official.

The complainant was then called to the Collector’s office and asked to meet Deputy Collector Jadhavar. On 13 August, when a team of ACB officials visited the office along with the complainant the demand was confirmed.

“The same day the accused Jadhavar, a Class-I officer, accepted the bribe amount of ₹50,000 from the complainant and was arrested while receiving the amount. We have got police custody of Jadhavar,” said a police officer. He was produced before the Palghar District Court.