3.5cr assets case against senior cop held in Oct for taking 3.5 lakh bribe

Navi Mumbai: Senior police inspector Satish Kadam (55) of NRI Coastal police station in Navi Mumbai, who was suspended after being arrested in a corruption case by the Mumbai Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Oct last year, has now been booked for amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income.The FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act was registered on June 9 at Ulwe police station by Mumbai ACB unit’s police inspector Krushna Mekhale. Inspector Mekhale said, “The examination of Kadam’s and his family’s property documents and financial records revealed that he amassed wealth worth Rs 3.48 crore during his tenure from Dec 1, 2013 to Oct 9, 2024, which is 297% more than his known sources of income.” Mekhale said the disproportionate assets case against Kadam is being further probed by Mumbai ACB unit’s assistant commissioner of police Suresh Shirshat.Mekhale stated that following Kadam’s arrest last Oct, he spent six days in police custody at ACB’s Worli unit, followed by over a month in judicial custody before securing bail from the High Court. Kadam was arrested by the Mumbai ACB unit after he was allegedly caught red-handed while accepting Rs 3.5 lakh in bribes from Ajay Kumbhar to help his builder-father Mahesh Kumbhar get bail in a cheating case. Mahesh was already imprisoned at Taloja jail following a building collapse in Shahbaz village, Belapur in July last year, which resulted in three deaths and two injuries.

Kadam had allegedly accepted Rs 14 lakh from Ajay in Sept in the building collapse caset.

Later, on Oct 2 last year, when a cheating case was filed against Mahesh at the NRI Coastal police station, Kadamdemanded a Rs 5 lakh bribe in exchange for not seeking his police remand. Unwilling to pay further, Ajay approached the ACB’s Worli unit which laid a trap and caught Kadam red-handed while accepting the bribe near his Ulwe residence. The ACB team searched Kadam’s house and found Rs 48 lakh in cash and jewellery. Among the prooperites owned by Kadam and his family are two apartments in Orchid Heights Society, Sector 23, Ulwe, a 170 sqm plot in Sector 25, Ulwe, 245 grams of gold, a Maruti Suzuki Celerio, a Hyundai Verna, and an Audi.