The Tripura high court has ordered the doctor of Santir Bazar PHC Sanjit Kumar Deb and Sajal Sharma, officer-in-charge of the Manpathar police outpost in South Tripura district to pay `2 lakh each to the wife of one Krishna Keshab Datta, a police constable who died in police custody, for negligence in performing their duty as well as conspiring to protect some Tripura State Rifles officials who inflicted grievous injury on the victim causing his demise.
In addition, the court also ordered the state government to pay `10 lakh as compensation to Rina Datta, wife of the victim.
Passing the landmark judgment, chief justice Deepak Gupta commented that the officer-in-charge and the doctor were not only negligent in their duties but in fact conspired with the TSR officials to prepare faults documents with a view to protect the TSR officials thus personally liable to pay compensation.
The victim, Krishna Keshab Datta, PSO of the former deputy speaker of the state Assembly Gouri Shankar Reang, was picked up from Manu Bazar marked by a group of TSR personnel on December 5,1998 allegedly in an inebriated condition and was handed over to the police outpost.
In the course of events, he was tortured and inflicted serious injuries.
Neither the officer-in-charge nor the doctor took the incident seriously and did not care to register an FIR and treat him properly.