Government directed to pay for custody death

Kolkata, Nov 3 (UNI) After fighting a lone battle for 26 years, a widowed mother finally got justice today when a two-judge bench of Calcutta High Court asked the govenment to pay her a hefty compensation for the death of her son in police custody.

The bench comprising Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice P S Banerjee ruled that the state government must pay Rs five lakh to Padmarani Thakur after collecting the amount within a month from the three policemen, held responsible for her son Kamal's death.

The court also fined the policemen Rs 10,000 as costs of the case.

Ms Thakur's counsel R N Bag said Kamal, a railway employee, was arrested at Golabari in Howrah on February 27 in 1980 and beaten to death.

His father lodged a complaint with police and the three policemen, held responsible for the death of his son, were acquitted by a district court on benefit of doubt.

Stung by the verdict, his family moved Calcutta High Court, which set aside the lower court order, convicted the policemen with the charges of murder and sentenced them to prison.

The convicts then moved the Supreme Court, challenging the verdict. The apex court, though threw out their appeals pleading innocence, reduced the tenure of the sentence in 1990.

By then Kamal's father died after an ordeal of collecting documents from the railway office to move the court seeking compensation for the death.

His mother finished her husband's unfinished deed and moved a plea before a single-judge bench of the high court, praying compensation against the state for its vicarious liability of Rs 35,00,000.

The bench, however, dismissed the suit on the ground of inordinate delay in filing the case.

Determined to fight to the end, she filed the appeal before a division bench of the court. The bench admitted her plea, heard for days, held the state liable for torturous activities of its employees, which infringed on the fundmental rights of the people and passed the order asking to pay the compensaton.

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