Satish Mathur, a 1981-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, took over the charge on 31st July as DGP (Maharashtra) on the same day when Praveen Dixit,the outgoing DGP retired.
A St Stephen’s alumni, Mathur has many firsts to his credit. He is the first IPS officer in the country who was trained by the National Security Guard (NSG).
He was also the first IPS officer to become the Director General, Legal & Technical, after it was created by the state to improve the conviction rate in Maharashtra.
Mathur has also served in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), where he was involved in the crucial investigations of the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. It was during this case that the CBI team, comprising Mathur, for the first time gave the prosecution access to a hyperlink where they could click on the name of the accused and all details regarding him would appear.
“The case had 193 accused persons and it was the team led by Mathur that came up with this arrangement for the first time,” said an officer.
During his stint as the ACB chief, the agency probed the Rs 30-crore bribe demand case concerning Gajanan Patil, an alleged close aide of former Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse. The status report submitted by the agency following the probe gave a “clean chit” to Khadse, stating that “the investigations haven’t revealed any evidence to suggest the (then) minister (Khadse) had demanded a bribe”.
His other postings include his tenure as Additional DG, Establishment, Pune police commissioner, five years with Air India on Central deputation and Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic, Mumbai.
Nitesh Poojari
