CITIZENS FOR DEMOCRACY Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "We clearly declare - and it shall be obeyed from the Inspector General of Police and Inspector General of Prisons to the escort constable and the jailwarder - that the rule, regarding a prisoner in transit prison house and Court house, is freedom from handcuffs and the exception, under conditions of judicial supervision we have indicated earlier will be restraints with irons to be justified before or after. We mandate the judicial officer before whom the prisoner is produced to interrogate the prisoner, as a rule, whether he has been subjected to handcuffs or other "irons" treatment and, if he has been, the official concerned shall be asked to explain the action forthwith in the light of this judgment". Ordained this Court - speaking through V. R. Krishna Iyer, J. - In Prem Shankar Shukla v. Delhi Administration (1980) 3 SCR 855 .

(2.) In Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration (1979) 1 SCR 392 , this Court pronounced that under trials shall be deemed to be in custody, but not undergoing punitive imprisonment. Fetters, especially bar fetters, shall be shunned as violative of human dignity, within and without prisons. The indiscriminate resort to handcuffs when accused persons are taken to and from Court and the expedient of forcing irons on prison inmates are illegal and shall be stopped forthwith save in small category of cases where an under trial has a credible tendency for violence and escape a humanely graduated degree of "iron" restraint is permissible if - other disciplinary alternatives are unworkable. The burden of proof of the ground is on the custodian. And if he fails, he will be liable in law. Reckless handcuffing and chaining in public degrades, puts to shame finer sensibilities and is a slur on our culture.

(3.) The law declared by this Court in Shukla's case (supra) and Batra's case (supra) is a mandate under Articles 141 and 144 of the Constitution of India and all concerned are bound to obey the same. We are constrained to say that the guidelines laid down by this Court and the directions issued repeatedly regarding handcuffing of under-trials and convicts are not being followed by the police jail authorities and even by the subordinate judiciary. We make it clear that the law laid down by this Court in the above said two judgments and the directions issued by us are binding on all concerned and any violation or circumvention shall attract the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act apart from other penal consequences under law.