A Sindhudurg court on Monday convicted Maharashtra cabinet minister and BJP leader Nitesh Narayan Rane and sentenced him to one month in jail for humiliating a government engineer by forcing him to walk in muddy water over non-completion of highway work.
Additional Sessions Judge VS Deshmukh found Rane guilty of the offence of criminal intimidation by intentional insult under Section 504 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Court held that Rane, as a lawmaker, was not supposed to take law into his own hands and humiliate or insult a government servant in public.
Hence, the Court sentenced Rane to one month in jail and also imposed a penalty of ₹1 lakh.
The Court directed that ₹50,000 of the fine be paid as compensation to engineer Prakash Dadoji Shedekar for the mental agony and humiliation suffered.
30 persons were accused in the case but only Rane was convicted while the remaining persons were acquitted.
Rane, who had spent five days in custody in July 2019, was given a set-off for that period. The court granted Rane's request for a stay on the sentence, allowing him to challenge the conviction in an appeal.
The case arose on July 4, 2019, when Rane had called Prakash Dadoji Shedekar, Sub Divisional Engineer at National Highway Sub Division in Sawantwadi to the Gad river bridge at Kankavali to inspect the ongoing widening work on NH-66.
The prosecution alleged that upon Shedekar's arrival, Rane and his associates appeared and expressed dissatisfaction with Shedekar's work and proceeded to humiliate the officer.
The FIR claimed the engineer was then forced to walk through muddy water near the residence of advocate Umesh Sawant. Further, it was alleged that a bucket of muddy water was poured over the engineer, he was restrained with a white plastic highway safety strip, and one of the co-accused slapped him from behind while he was performing his duty.
After a trial in which seven prosecution witnesses were examined, the Court rejected almost the entire prosecution case of unlawful assembly, rioting, assault, criminal force, wrongful confinement, conspiracy and damage to public property and acquitted Rane and 29 co-accused of all major charges.
The judge found significant discrepancies between the FIR, the engineer’s testimony and the account of a police witness regarding who allegedly poured muddy water and whether anyone tied or assaulted the officer.
The Court held that there was no cogent evidence to prove these allegations.
However, the Court held that one aspect stood firmly proved - that Rane compelled the government engineer to walk through muddy water in public, which would have certainly humiliated, insulted him and amounted to intentional insult likely to provoke breach of peace.
The Court termed the conduct an abuse of power and said that such tendencies need to be curbed.
It observed that the episode was rooted in public anger over incomplete service roads and persistent water-logging in Kankavali district of Maharashtra due to the widening work on National Highway 66.
“There was hues and cries in the public regarding the poor quality work of the highway,” the Court noted.
The then ruling Shiv Sena had held a press conference blaming Rane for the road condition. This acted as the triggering point.
Even so, the judge underlined that law makers are not supposed to take law into their hands.
"Even though his intention was to raise voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the public, he was not supposed to humiliate, insult a public servant in public,” the Court emphasised while convicting Rane.
[Read order]