Maharashtra's Bribery Epidemic: 669 Cases in 2025, 183 Cases in Just the First 3 Months of 2026 — City by City Breakdown with Sources
Maharashtra is India's richest state, its financial capital, its industrial engine. It is also, according to its own Anti-Corruption Bureau, a state where a government employee gets caught taking a bribe almost twice a day. What follows is not an opinion piece. It is a city-by-city, name-by-name breakdown of who got caught, when, and how much they demanded. Every case is sourced. Read it and decide for yourself whether anything will ever change.
The Numbers First — Because They Are Staggering
In 2025, the ACB Maharashtra registered 669 trap cases across the state. That means 669 times, a citizen refused to pay a bribe, walked to the ACB, and a trap was successfully laid. 988 persons were booked. Rs 3.54 crore in bribe money was involved. The Nashik range had the most cases with 138, followed by Pune with 121, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar with 109, Thane with 82, Amravati with 71, Nanded with 55, Nagpur with 54 and Mumbai with 39. The Revenue and Land Records department was the most corrupt department with 168 cases, followed by Police with 120 cases, Panchayat Samiti with 69, and electricity distributor MSEDCL with 46.
Then came Q1 of 2026. From January to March alone, 183 more cases were registered and 262 persons booked. The pipeline has not slowed down even slightly.
Source for both stat blocks: https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-acb-registers-669-corruption-cases-in-2025-revenue-and-police-departments-top-list and https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-acb-registers-183-corruption-cases-in-q1-2026-revenue-police-officials-top-list
Now let us go city by city.
PUNE — May 13, 2026 | Rs 50,000 | Police Inspector, Bavdhan
Assistant Police Inspector Jyoti Pandurang Tambe (41) at Bavdhan Police Station under Pimpri Chinchwad Police Commissionerate was caught demanding Rs 50,000 to shield a complainant's relatives from arrest and to fast-track a chargesheet. The complainant approached the ACB on March 12 and a trap was laid. Tambe was caught red-handed. Operation run under ACB SP Shirish Sardeshpande.
Source: https://www.punekarnews.in/pune-bavdhan-police-api-caught-demanding-rs-50000-bribe/
PUNE — May 2, 2026 | Rs 28 Lakh | Economic Offences Wing
API Vaishali Totewar of the Economic Offences Wing had just been promoted to Police Inspector and was transferring to Mumbai Railway Police. Before she could even join her new posting, the ACB caught her intermediary near Hotel Conrad accepting Rs 28 lakh in cash. Totewar was handling 8 to 9 complaint applications at the time. Searches were launched at her office and residence simultaneously.
Source: https://www.punekarnews.in/pune-police-officer-caught-in-rs-28-lakh-bribery-case-acb-lays-trap/
PUNE — May 2, 2026 | Rs 80,000 | Lohegaon Police Station, Inside the Station Itself
PSI Manoj Madhukar Baste (38) at Lohegaon Police Station was caught accepting Rs 80,000 from a businessman linked to a non-cognizable case. What is notable here is that the PSI initially demanded Rs 70,000 and then raised his own demand to Rs 80,000 during negotiations. The bribe was paid inside the police station.
MUMBAI — May 6, 2026 | Rs 10,000 | BMC, Andheri East
BMC senior assistant supervisor Yogesh Sawant demanded Rs 15,000 from a complainant to process his son's permanent appointment as a sanitation worker. The amount was negotiated down to Rs 10,000. Sawant directed his subordinate Chandrakant Gamre to collect the money, and Gamre was caught red-handed. Both were arrested and charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
MUMBAI — November 25, 2025 | Rs 20,000 | BMC Sanitation Inspector, Dahisar
Dilip Sarvade (57), Sanitation Inspector at BMC's R/North Ward in Dahisar, was caught accepting Rs 20,000 from an eatery owner as the annual instalment of a running bribe arrangement. The deal was simple: pay up every year and no action would be taken against the establishment. The complainant refused, went to the ACB, and Sarvade was trapped.
NAGPUR — April 25, 2026 | Rs 5 Lakh | District Collector's Office
Revenue Assistant Naresh Sadhuraoji Barve (54) at the Nagpur Collector's Office was caught accepting Rs 5 lakh to clear an appeal related to a construction matter on a nazul (government-owned) plot. He did not take the bribe at his office. He called the complainant to his private residence in Nandanvan Layout at 11 PM at night. The ACB was waiting. He was caught with the cash in hand.
Source: https://theprint.in/india/revenue-official-caught-taking-rs-5-lakh-bribe-at-home-in-nagpur/2914258/
NAGPUR — March 2026 | Rs 1,000 | RTO Checkpost, Kandri
Motor Vehicle Inspector Abhijit Tale of the Nagpur RTO and his private agent Sushil Vinod Ramtekkar were caught at the Kandri border checkpost demanding Rs 1,000 to let a trailer truck pass through. Drivers at this checkpost had reportedly been paying Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 as a routine toll. The ACB laid a trap during an actual transit and caught them on the spot.
Source: https://www.thehitavada.com/Encyc/2026/3/12/acb-nabs-mvi-agent-while-accepting-bribe-of-rs-1000.html
NAGPUR — February 26, 2026 | Rs 3,000 | Nagpur Municipal Corporation
NMC Revenue Inspector Pramod Vasantkumar Mogre (50) at the Hanuman Nagar Zone office used a private middleman, Rakesh Narendra Dodke, to collect Rs 3,500 from a flat buyer who had applied to transfer property tax into his name. The middleman promised the tax would be reduced to Rs 1,800 annually if the bribe was paid. The ACB caught both of them.
Source: https://www.nagpurtoday.in/nmc-revenue-inspector-middleman-in-acb-trap-for-rs-3000-bribe/02261253
NAVI MUMBAI — April 7, 2026 | Rs 20,000 | Maharashtra State Board of Education
Rajendra Manik Ahire, Divisional Chairman of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education at Vashi, was caught accepting Rs 20,000 inside his own office cabin from an electrical contractor whose bills were being deliberately held up. His colleague Manohar Laxman Pawar facilitated the transaction. The contractor had submitted invoices worth Rs 3.16 lakh and was told 7 percent commission was the standard price for bill clearance.
Source: https://www.newsband.in/article\_detail/acb-traps-state-board-official-in-rs-20000-bribe-case
JALGAON — May 9, 2026 | Rs 5 Lakh | PWD Office
Branch Engineer Yogesh Abhimanyu Ahire (54) of the PWD was caught accepting Rs 5 lakh as the first instalment of a Rs 15 lakh bribe demanded for clearing a road project bill worth Rs 38.49 lakh. The original demand was Rs 17 lakh. Ahire told the contractor to hide the cash under the front seat of his blue Baleno car. The ACB was watching. During investigation, Ahire claimed part of the money was meant for the son of a city corporator.
The Pattern No One Wants to Talk About
Look at who is getting caught. Police officers. Revenue officials. Municipal corporation staff. School board administrators. Road engineers. RTO checkpost officers. BMC health inspectors. This is not one rotten apple. This is the whole orchard.
The ACB has 8 ranges covering every district in Maharashtra — Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Pune, Amravati, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nanded. All of them are busy. The ACB's own press release page in 2026 has FIRs from Pune, Jalgaon, Nashik, Nagpur, Dhule, Nandurbar, Kolhapur, Solapur, Beed, Dharashiv, Chandrapur, Ahilyanagar and more. Not a single region is clean.
And remember — these are only the cases where citizens refused to pay and had the courage to go to the ACB. For every arrest, how many people just paid up and went home? 10? 50? Nobody knows.
208 government officials across 20 departments who have already been booked in corruption cases are still not suspended as of Q1 2026. They are still sitting in their chairs. Still signing files. Still answering phones.
Drop your district below. Has anyone personally been asked for a bribe at a government office in Maharashtra? RTO, collector office, municipal corporation, school, ration office — any of it. This thread is the place.
TL;DR: Maharashtra sees nearly 2 bribery arrests every single day. 669 cases in 2025. 183 in just the first 3 months of 2026. Police, revenue, PWD, BMC, education board — nobody is clean. ACB is catching them but 208 already-arrested officials have not even been suspended yet.
ACB Helpline: 1064 | Report and track cases online: https://acbmaharashtra.gov.in