MUMBAI, April 28 -- Maharashtra fisheries minister and BJP leader Nitesh Rane has been convicted and sentenced to a month's imprisonment by a Sindhudurg district court in connection with a 2019 incident, where Rane and his supporters humiliated a government official by pouring mud on him and forcing him to walk through slush in public. Rane, then an opposition Congress MLA, has been convicted under Section 504 (intentional insult to provoke a breach of peace). The court has, however, suspended the sentence, giving Rane an opportunity to appeal. Even as it recorded that the BJP leader had compelled the engineer to walk through muddy water in public view, the judgement, delivered by Additional Sessions Judge V S Deshmukh at Oros, convicted Rane only under Section 504 of the IPC, which deals with "intentional insult", saying that "the gist of the offence punishable under Section 504. is intentional insult. Manner of insulting is not material". The court also acquitted Rane and 29 co-accused of other charges linked to the incident, including assault on a public servant, causing hurt, unlawful assembly, rioting, wrongful confinement, criminal intimidation and conspiracy. The prosecution case stemmed from an incident on July 4, 2019, when Prakash Shedekar, then a sub-divisional engineer with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), was called to inspect works on NH-66 at Kankavli, a constituency Rane represents. According to the FIR registered at Kankavali police station, Rane, dissatisfied with the condition of the highway, humiliated the engineer during the inspection, with allegations that muddy water was thrown on him and that he was made to walk through slush while discharging official duties. At trial, the court found that the prosecution failed to prove the core allegations underpinning the more serious charges. On unlawful assembly, it held that there was no cogent evidence to establish that five or more accused formed such an assembly, noting that "there is no reliable evidence to prove that there was assembly of five or more accused persons on the spot of the incident", and emphasising that mere presence in a crowd does not satisfy the statutory requirement. The court also rejected allegations of assault and use of criminal force, pointing to inconsistencies between the FIR and witness testimony, and observing that these discrepancies "disprove that the accused used criminal force. and voluntarily caused hurt" to the complainant. Claims of wrongful confinement, rioting, criminal intimidation, conspiracy and damage to public property were similarly held not proved. The court noted gaps in identification of specific assailants, contradictions in the prosecution version regarding who poured muddy water, and the absence of corroborative material such as video evidence that could have been decisive. The conviction ultimately turned on a narrower finding. While the verbal abuses attributed in the FIR were not substantiated in evidence, 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. 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 imposed one month's simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs.100,000, with a default sentence of seven days. It recorded the defence submission that the incident arose out of public frustration over poor highway work and that the accused had no prior convictions. Rane's counsel, Sangram Desai, said a revision petition will soon be filed before the Bombay High Court. "We requested the court to stay the order until Rane approaches the high court," he said. Reacting to the court's ruling, Nitesh Rane posted on X, "Satyamev Jayate."...