Police Approach Apex Court Seeking To Relax Directions Prohibiting Handcuffing Of Arrested Persons, Undertrials To Ensure Safe Transit In Pandemic

What is the case

• A listing that is needed immediately, the Delhi Police has filed an application with the Supreme Court, demanding that the Apex Court ease its order banning handcuffing of detained persons and other Undertrial Prisoners until the pandemic subsides, in order to ensure safe transit while they are being escorted.
• The current application was filed in a Suo moto matter, In Re: Covid 19 Virus Contagion in Prisons, which was registered by the Court last year.

What was the plea given

• "It is respectfully submitted that the present applications for impleadment and directions are being preferred seeking relaxation of directions issued by this Hon'ble Court prohibiting handcuffing of arrested persons and undertrial prisoners till such time the Covid-19 pandemic subsides in order to ensure safe transit between jail/police station and courts while producing/escorting the undertrial prisoner/arrested person before the Courts, Hospitals and other places during custody parole, investigation etc."
• "It will be unsafe to hold the prisoner/accused by hand in close proximity. Further, even if the police personnel wear the gloves, it will not give the sufficient grip to hold the prisoner/accused, even in that event they have to move in close proximity and cannot ensure social distancing norms. Therefore, if they are handcuffed, the police personnel escorting them can hold them from a distance, thereby ensuring safe distancing."

Case reference

• Sunil Batra vs. Delhi Administration (1978) held that the use of handcuffs indiscriminately while convicted persons are brought to and from jail, as well as the practice of putting irons on prison inmates, was unconstitutional and should be stopped immediately, except in a limited number of cases.
• The court had ruled that public handcuffing and chaining “degrades, brings to shame finer sensibilities, and is a slur on our culture.”
• In Citizens for Democracy vs. State of Assam (1995), the Supreme Court upheld the rule that handcuffs or other fetters should not be imposed on a prisoner – whether convicted or not – while lodged in jail anywhere in the world, or while transporting or in transit from one jail to another, or from jail to court and back.
• The court said, "On their own, the police and jail authorities shall have no authority to guide the handcuffing of an inmate of a jail in the country, or during transport from one jail to another, or from jail to court and back."

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