Why Nitesh Rane got sentenced to one month in jail: The 2019 mud attack recall

ALmost septenary years feature passed since Maharashtra pol Nitesh Rane confronted an engine driver of the subject Highway Authority of India (NHAI) over the poor condition of the Mumbai-Goa highway. On July 4, 2019, as Rane pushed the engineer, Prakash Shedekar, around and shouted at him in Marathi, his supporters poured buckets of mud over his head.Shedekar was even tied to a bridge near Kankavli in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra as Rane, who was associated with the Congress then, led the charge against the official. Also read: ‘6.6% votes, 86% seats’ after Raghav Chadha shift: BJP sees Punjab RS spike, but assembly polls a challengeRane had reportedly called Shedekar to a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli for inspecting the work to widen the Mumbai-Goa Highway.Frustrated by the poor quality of the roadwork and waterlogging, Rane and his followers confronted the engineer, prosecution told the court on Monday, PTI reported. They poured muddy water on Shedekar and forced him to walk through slush in public.A video of the incident had surfaced on social media and kicked up a row. Rane, 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. He was in Congress when the incident occurred and later switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Also read: White House dinner shooting suspect charged with attempting to assassinate TrumpAll the accused, including Nitesh Rane, were acquitted of these offences, as the Sindhudurg court found insufficient evidence to support most of these claims. However, the Kankavali MLA was found guilty of assaulting a public servant and deterring them from performing their official duties under IPC section 504 (intentional insult meant to provoke a breach of public peace).‘Abuse of power’As the court Sindhudurg convicted Rane and sentenced him to one month in jail, it noted that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their hands."Even though Rane's intention was to raise a voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the people, he was not supposed to humiliate or insult a public servant in public," additional sessions court judge V S Deshmukh was quoted as saying by PTI news agency."If such incidents continue to occur, public servants would not be able to discharge their duties with dignity," the judge noted.Calling the act "abuse of power", the court held that "it is the demand of time to curb such tendency".‘Intentional insult’The court further noted that the Shedekar was holding a high post in the NHAI when the incident took place. "Despite that, he was made to walk through the muddy water in public. It would have certainly humiliated and insulted him," the court remarked.The court held that the act compelling the engineer to walk through muddy water itself constituted intentional insult of a serving public official and was sufficient to attract liability, as mentioned in an earlier HT report.It concluded that forcing a public servant to walk through mud “would have certainly humiliated, insulted him” and was sufficient to constitute intentional insult likely to provoke breach of peace.The court has, however, suspended the sentence, giving Rane an opportunity to appeal.When Rane threw a fish at an officialRane isn't new to controversies and mud controversy wasn't his first. In 2017, Rane threw a dead fish at a government official during a meeting to discuss problems faced by fishermen as he lost his cool. A purported video clip from the incident shows Rane speaking to fisheries commissioner of Sindhudurg in his office packed with people and Rane suddenly loses his cool. He then picks up a dead fish dumped at the official's desk and throws it at him. He later said that his act was to protest the official's "ignorant attitude" towards the problems faced by the traditional fishing community of the Konkan region."There are two kinds of fishermen in Sindhudurg. One who use traditional methods for fishing and the other who use modern technology," Rane told PTI then.