Cuttack: Orissa High Court has directed the state government to pay Rs 2 lakh as compensation to a victim of mental and physical torture by officers of Mahakalpada police station in Kendrapara over 25 years ago.

The direction came on a petition filed by Deulapara resident Chitaranjan Behera, who claimed the compensation for being subjected to harassment, mental torture and humiliation by the cops by "impersonating" him as Tukuna Behera.

Expressing concern, the court observed: "The vulnerability of human right assumes a traumatic torture when functionaries of the state, whose paramount duty is to protect the citizens and not commit gruesome offences against them, in reality perpetrate them."

Chittaranjan had filed the petition in 2009, but it languished in court before being allowed on Thursday.

Mahakalpada police station registered a case in June 1992 following an FIR by the presiding officer for the Deulapara gram panchayat elections after the ballot papers were forcibly taken away. Three persons - Ranjit Samal, Kumar Behera and Tukuna Behera - were named as accused.

The court felt that "there was no iota of doubt that the petitioner had undergone mental torture at the hands of insensitive police officers" and "there was deliberate and wilful violation of fundamental rights of the petitioner".

"The very conduct of the police authority has destroyed the brightness and willpower of the petitioner. In order to restore the human dignity of the petitioner this court is of the considered view that a sum of Rs 2 lakh should be granted towards compensation to be paid by the state within a period of three months," the single judge bench of Justice B.R. Sarangi said in its January 25 order.

Justice Sarangi specified that the compensation amount should be realised from the salary of the erring officers in equal proportion "as thought appropriate by the competent authority of the state".

"If the petitioner is not an accused, he could not have been harassed by the local police, by impersonating him as Tukuna Behera, and subjected to mental and physical torture, which violates his right to life and personal liberty", Justice Sarangi ruled.

According to the court order, the officer in charge of Mahakalpada police station called the petitioner to the police station on four occasions and threatened to arrest him in connection with the case. The petitioner was also taken into custody, tortured and forwarded to the Court of the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Kendrapara, even though he was not involved in the case.

He was granted bail after he proved his identity before the magistrate.