In a relief for BJP MLA Nitesh Rane, the Maharashtra police has assured the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that it will not take coercive action against him till January 7 in an alleged attempt to murder case in connection with an attack on one Santosh Parab, 44, in December 2021.
While asking the police to file its reply and produce case diary, Justice CV Bhadang has kept Nitesh’s pre-arrest bail plea for hearing on January 7 at 2.30 pm.
Nitesh, son of union minister Narayan Rane, who represents the Kankavali Assembly seat in Sindhudurg district, had approached the HC after the sessions court at Sindhudurg rejected his plea on December 30, 2021.
Special public prosecutor Sudeep Pasbola, appearing for the state government, contended that the preliminary probe has revealed that Rane was the mastermind in the case and that he was evading interrogation.
Pasbola sought two days’ time to file an affidavit following which Nitesh’s advocate Niteen Pradhan sought interim protection from arrest. Pasbola then gave oral assurance to the court that the police would not take coercive action against Nitesh.
Pradhan argued: “He (Nitesh) is being prosecuted only for humiliation. He appeared before the concerned police station on December 24, 2021, and his statement was recorded. Later, he was intimated that he might be arrested following which he sought pre-arrest bail.”
To this, Pasbola replied that when Nitesh was questioned on December 24, the police had just begun its probe. Pointing out his complicity in the attack, Pasbola said: “On December 26, one of his (Nitesh’s) associates was arrested who revealed his role in the case. Our investigation has revealed that he (Nitesh) is the mastermind in the case.”
Pradhan argued that Nitesh was being “falsely implicated” with the intention to “disgrace him in public” by arresting. It is a perfect example of “vindictive misuse of political power” in order to settle score in respect of recent incident of catcalling outside Vidhan Bhavan and the hotly contested elections in the Zilla Madhyavarti Sahakari Bank Elections, in which the BJP won against the ruling political party, said Pradhan.
“The present government, it seems, finds the political retorts difficult to humour and is using its political power to unleash vendetta by trying to falsely rope in the applicants for an offence which they have not committed,” reads the plea.
Since December 25, 2021, the Inspector General of Police has been stationed at Sindhudurg and is sitting in Kankavali police station. “The police, as well as the political pressure, is writ large,” states the plea.
The FIR was registered at Kankavali police station after local Shiv Sena activist Santosh Parab was attacked during the campaign for the Sindhudurg District Central Cooperative Bank election on December 18, 2021.
Six persons have been arrested in the case.
