Assault on engineer: Congress MLA Nitesh Rane gets bail
Mumbai, Jul 10: A court in Maharashtra's Sindhudurg district granted bail on Wednesday to Congress MLA Nitesh Rane and 18 others, arrested for assaulting an engineer of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
Rane's lawyer Sangram Desai said the accused were granted bail against a surety of Rs 20,000 each.
The court directed all the 19 accused to visit the police station concerned every Sunday for two hours and cooperate with the probe, he said.
The judge also said that Rane and others must ensure that such incidents do not occur again, advocate Desai said.
Rane and others were arrested on July 4 after they were caught on camera abusing NHAI deputy engineer Prakash Shedekar and pouring a bucket of mud on him in Kankavli town, protesting against pothole-riddled roads and slush on the Mumbai-Goa highway.
They were booked under IPC sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 120-b (criminal conspiracy).
Nitesh is son of former Maharashtra chief minister and sitting Rajya Sabha MP Narayan Rane.
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'Someone must be held accountable': HC converts civil suit on Goa nightclub tragedy into PIL
Panaji (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Monday converted a civil suit against Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub into a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) saying "someone has to be held accountable" for the tragedy in which 25 people were killed.In a stern observation, Goa bench of the High Court of Justices Sarang Kotwal and Ashish Chavan said the local panchayat had "failed to take suo motu cognisance" of the club and had taken "no action despite complaints."
The division bench directed the Goa government to file a detailed reply on the permissions granted to the nightclub.
The High Court, while fixing January 8 as the next date of hearing, pointed out that commercial operations were continuing in the structure despite it having been served a demolition order.
The original petition was filed after the December 6 tragedy by Pradeep Ghadi Amonkar and Sunil Divkar, the owners of the land on which the nightclub was operating.
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Advocate Rohit Bras de Sa, the lawyer representing the petitioner, was made amicus curiae in the matter and has been asked to file a detailed affidavit in the matter.
In their petition, Amonkar and Divkar highlighted "the alarming pattern of statutory violations that have remained inadequately addressed despite multiple complaints, inspections, show-cause notices, and even a demolition order".
They contended that these violations posed "immediate threats to public safety, ecological integrity, and the rule of law in the state of Goa."
Investigations by multiple agencies into the nightclub fire have revealed various irregularities, including lack of permissions to operate the nightclub.
The Goa police arrested five managers and staff members of the club, while co-owners Gaurav Luthra and Saurabh Luthra have been detained in Thailand after they fled the country.
