MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday deferred the hearing on the anticipatory bail plea of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Nitesh Rane, son of Union minister Narayan Rane, in an attempt-to-murder case filed against him in Sindhudurg district till January 7.
The police are investigating Nitesh Rane’s alleged role in connection with an assault on Santosh Parab, 44, a Shiv Sena functionary, on December 18.
Special public prosecutor Sudeep Pasbola orally submitted before Justice C V Bhadang that no coercive steps would be taken till then against him.
Senior counsel Niteen Pradhan appearing for Rane said the whole case is a “reaction to a cat-call lampooning’’ in December 2021 by Nitesh Rane when the BJP leaders were protesting outside Vidhan Sabha.
He said Rane and a co-accused were called by the police on December 24 and interrogated for four hours and allowed to go, but on December 26 Kankavali police issued summons under section 91 of Criminal Procedure Code—as an accused—and hence he filed an anticipatory bail application on December 27 which was heard for a few days before it was rejected. Thus on January 3, Rane moved the HC.
The FIR at the Kankavli police says that Sena functionary Santosh Parab, 44, allegedly stabbed in the chest on December 18 at 11 pm by a man after being knocked down from his motorbike by a car, heard the alleged assailant—a passenger in the car--uttering that they “should inform Gotya Sawant and Nitesh Rane”.
Parab is an associate of Sindhudurg District Co-operative Bank chairperson Satish Sawant who was defeated by Nitesh in the 2019 assembly elections "in a hotly contested election''.
Rane's application says he and the co-accused being "falsely implicated and to disgrace them in the public by their arrest, is a perfect example of vindictive misuse of political power in order to settle scores with regard to the event of catcalling outside the Vidhan Sabha''.
His application before the HC says on December 18, 2021, four persons were arrested by Kankavali police and another, fifth man, arrested on December 20.
All five were on December 25 remanded to magisterial custody till January 6, 2022.
"In the remand order, it has been observed that the medical certificate of the complainant shows that the injury is simple in nature,'' says his petition adding that "it falsifies'' the complainant's allegations of "being dragged'' which "is an afterthought''.
