Maha minister Nitesh Rane gets 1-month jail in 2019 mud attack case

After pronouncing judgement, Maharashtra court suspends BJP minister Nitesh Rane's sentence, allowing him to appeal before higher court. Earlier, a Sindhudurg court has convicted Nitesh Rane for intentionally insulting an NHAI engineer during a 2019 protest over the Mumbai-Goa highway's poor condition, sentencing him to one month in jail and a Rs1 lakh fine. The court acquitted 29 co-accused and suspended Rane’s sentence to allow an appeal, stressing that public servants must be treated with dignity. The case, marked by the public humiliation of a government official, has political significance as Rane was then in Congress but now serves as a BJP minister.
During a protest on the Mumbai-Goa highway in Kankavli, Nitesh Rane, then a Congress MLA, summoned NHAI engineer Prakash Shedekar to the site. He and his supporters poured muddy water on the engineer and forced him to walk through slush in public.
Additional sessions judge V S Deshmukh emphasised that lawmakers must not take the law into their own hands, calling the act an "abuse of power" and stressing the need to curb such tendencies. The court noted that compelling a senior NHAI officer to walk through muddy water was an intentional insult likely to provoke a breach of peace. The court found Rane guilty under Section 504.Rane, a son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, was among 30 people charged under various offences, including rioting, assault to deter a public servant, and criminal conspiracy.