A court in Sindhudurg has convicted Maharashtra minister and BJP leader Nitesh Rane in connection with a 2019 incident involving the public humiliation of a National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) engineer. The Additional Sessions Court sentenced Rane to one month of imprisonment on Monday while suspending the sentence to allow him time to file an appeal in a higher court.
The case dates back to July 4, 2019, when Rane, then a Congress MLA, along with his supporters, confronted Sub-Divisional Engineer Prakash Shedekar during an inspection of road widening work and a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli on the Mumbai-Goa Highway. Frustrated by alleged poor quality of work and waterlogging, they poured muddy water on the engineer and forced him to walk through slush in full public view.
Nitesh Rane was among 30 individuals charged with offences including rioting, assault to deter a public servant from discharge of duty, and criminal conspiracy. The court acquitted the other 29 accused citing insufficient evidence. Rane was also cleared of those serious charges but found guilty under Indian Penal Code Section 504 for intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace.
Additional Sessions Court Judge V S Deshmukh observed that although Rane’s intention appeared to be to highlight poor road conditions and inconvenience to the public, he was not justified in humiliating a public servant in public. The judge described the act as an “abuse of power” and stressed that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their own hands. The court noted that such incidents could prevent public servants from performing their duties with dignity.
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The judge further remarked that compelling Shedekar, who held a senior position, to walk through muddy water in public amounted to intentional insult likely to provoke a breach of peace. The ruling underscored the need to curb such tendencies.
Nitesh Rane, son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, switched from Congress to the BJP after the 2019 incident and currently serves as a minister in the Maharashtra government. The court’s decision comes years after the widely reported confrontation that had drawn significant attention at the time.
This development revives focus on the limits of political protest and accountability for public representatives. With the sentence suspended, Rane is expected to challenge the conviction in a higher court.
