Mumbai: A court in Sindhudurg has convicted Maharashtra Minister Nitesh Rane in the 2019 mud attack case involving an engineer of the National Highways Authority of India, sentencing him to one month in jail, with the sentence suspended to allow him to appeal.
The ruling brings renewed focus on the widely reported incident, where visuals had shown Rane and his supporters throwing mud at a public official during protests over the condition of the Mumbai-Goa highway.
The court held that public grievances cannot justify humiliating a government officer and stressed that elected representatives cannot take the law into their own hands.
The incident occurred in July 2019 when Rane called NHAI Sub-Divisional Engineer Prakash Shedekar to inspect road widening work on the highway.
According to prosecutors, Rane and his supporters confronted the engineer over waterlogging and poor construction quality before pouring mud on him in full public view.
He faced multiple charges, including rioting, criminal conspiracy and assault aimed at obstructing a public servant from performing official duties.
Additional Sessions Court Judge V S Deshmukh observed that while the protest may have been driven by public interest, the method adopted was unlawful and amounted to an abuse of power.
“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,” the judge said.
The court warned that such actions could undermine the dignity of public servants and hinder them from discharging their duties effectively.
Rane was convicted under Section 504 for intentional insult intended to provoke a breach of peace and awarded a one-month jail term, while 29 other accused were acquitted.
With the sentence suspended, the case is likely to move to an appellate court if Rane challenges the verdict.
