Nitesh Rane firing case: Court rejects CBI's closure report

In a setback to Nitesh Rane, the son of Maharashtra Minister Narayan Rane, a local court has rejected closure report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in a case where he is accused of shooting at a man and directed a detailed probe.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate B Y Kale said that the CBI probe was not as per the information given by Chintu Shaikh, the complainant, nor was it in conformity with observations of the Bombay high court, which had asked the CBI to take over the probe from Mumbai crime branch.

Shaikh had challenged the CBI's closure report, giving clean chit to Nitesh, who heads local NGO `Swabhiman Sanghatana'.

The court said there was doubt about the manner in which the probe had taken off soon after the incident and it has become necessary to provide credibility and instill confidence in the investigation of this case, which involves son of the sitting cabinet minister of the state and brother of a member of Parliament.

"Considering the nature of the crime, involvement of all the accused and other persons related to the crime and in the interest of justice, I find it necessary to direct further investigation in detail as per insistence and information of the complainant and observations of the high court," the magistrate said in his order on August 3.

While transferring the probe to the CBI in March 2012, the HC had remarked that there were "inexplicable circumstances" which created doubts about the probe by Mumbai police.

Shaikh had alleged that the son of the Congress leader shot at him twice at Swabhiman Sanghatana's office in Mumbai in September 2010 in a fit of bad temper. He alleged that a bullet grazed his cheek causing injury.

Shaikh, a member of the NGO then, moved the high court seeking the CBI probe, alleging that Nitesh's politician father, Narayan Rane, was interfering in the probe.

 "There are inexplicable circumstances borne out from the record which create doubt about the manner in which the investigation has taken off soon after the incident...it has become necessary to provide credibility and instill confidence in the investigation of this case, which involves son of the sitting Cabinet minister of the state and brother of a member of Parliament," the high court had said.