A Mapusa court on Thursday acquitted Maharashtra minister Nitish Rane of a 2013 case in which he was accused of vandalizing a toll booth at Dargal on the Goa-Maharashtra Expressway and assaulting toll attendants.
Rane, who sought exemption from paying fees by virtue of being the son of then Maharashtra Congress leader Narayan Rane, allegedly vandalized the booth after being denied the exemption.
“I would like to sincerely thank the honorable court for acquitting everyone and giving us justice,” Rani said outside the court in Mapusa after the ruling. “Our team of lawyers did a good job in presenting the facts before the court and, as expected, we got justice.”
But he refused to recount the incident, and said it would not be appropriate to recount it now that the court had issued its ruling after hearing both sides.
Rani’s lawyers said the court acquitted him on the grounds that the prosecution failed to prove the case. Rani was arrested along with eight others in the case and later released on bail.
The convoy was heading from Maharashtra to Goa on a special mission when the quarrel occurred.
The prosecution argued that Rani, along with his companions, vandalized the toll booth and assaulted those present.
The Goa government, during the tenure of then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, had imposed an ‘entry fee’ on all unregistered Goa vehicles – private and commercial – entering the state. The duties were imposed between 2013 and 2017, when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented across the country. However, after much fanfare, the Goa government granted an exemption to vehicles registered in neighboring Maharashtra and Karnataka districts.
