MUMBAI, June 21 -- A special CBI court on Saturday acquitted former Maharashtra home minister Padamsinh Patil, 86, and seven others in the 2006 murder of Patil's cousin and Congress leader Pawanraje Nimbalkar and his driver, saying the prosecution failed to establish the conspiracy beyond reasonable doubt. Patil, the alleged mastermind behind the conspiracy and then with the undivided NCP, is the step-brother of deputy chief minister and NCP chief, Sunetra Pawar, while Pawanraje Nimbalkar is the father of Omprakash Nimbalkar, one of the six rebel Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs likely to switch to the Shiv Sena. Patil, who suffers from age-related ailments, was brought to the court premises in an ambulance and presented in court in a wheelchair. His son, Ranajagjitsinha Patil, a BJP MLA from Tuljapur, later said his father was unable to comprehend the proceedings due to his medical condition. While delivering the judgement, Special Judge Satyanarayan Navander held that while political hostility between Nimbalkar and Patil was established, the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this rivalry culminated in a criminal conspiracy to murder. Also acquitted were Patil's close associates Latur-based businessman Satish Mandade, and Mohan Shukla, alleged shooters Dinesh Tiwari and Pintusingh Chaudhary, BSP worker Kailash Yadav and his associate Gyanendra Pande, and Shashikant Kulkarni, a former state excise inspector. The ninth accused, Parasol Badala, had turned approver and granted pardon. The double murder took place on June 3, 2006, when Nimbalkar was travelling from Mumbai to Pune by road. According to the prosecution, another car blocked the vehicle in Kalamboli, after which Badala approached Nimbalkar's driver Samad Kazi and confirmed Nimbalkar's identity. Tiwari and Chaudhary then opened fire, killing Nimbalkar and Kazi before fleeing. When the Navi Mumbai crime branch failed to make any significant progress, Nimbalkar's widow Anandibai approached the Bombay High Court, seeking a CBI investigation. The court noted that Nimbalkar and Patil had fallen out after 2002. According to the prosecution, Nimbalkar believed he had been falsely implicated in cases relating to alleged irregularities in the Osmanabad District Central Cooperative Bank and the Terna Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana, where Patil was chairperson. Their relations soured further and descended into a quagmire of complaints, counter-complaints and litigation. The CBI had alleged that the rift deepened after anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare publicly alleged that Kargil war relief funds collected through the Terna Sugar Cooperative had been misused, and that information supplied by Nimbalkar had fuelled the controversy. As a result, Patil viewed Nimbalkar as a political threat, particularly after the latter emerged as a challenger in local and assembly politics. The judge, however, observed that while "political animosity between them was certain", despite several complaints lodged by Nimbalkar with authorities, and an election petition filed following his defeat to Patil, there was no material to show that he feared for his life. The CBI's case rested largely on the testimony of approver Parasmal Badala. However, the court found Badala's evidence completely unreliable. The court said he had been kept in illegal police custody for a significant period and that the police had tortured him to extract a confession. The court also found procedural lapses in the recording of the confessional statements. It also found that several crucial allegations relied solely on the approver's testimony without independent corroboration. For instance, the prosecution had failed to establish Badala's alleged financial distress, which was projected as the reason he accepted the contract killing. Similarly, the allegation that he met Mandade in Latur and was offered Rs.12 lakh to kill Nimbalkar rested entirely on the approver's account, with no independent witness or documentary evidence supporting the claim. The judge also noted that investigators had neither seized the mobile phones of the accused, nor collected their call detail records. The CBI claimed to have cracked the case after Badala, already in custody in another matter, allegedly disclosed the conspiracy. According to the agency, he said he had initially sought financial help from Mohan Shukla and was later introduced to Mandade, who allegedly offered him money to kill Nimbalkar. Following the verdict on Saturday, the CBI said it would challenge the acquittal before the Bombay High Court....