Handcuffing of prisoners is an act against all norms of decency and should not be used ordinarily or in a routine manner or for the convenience of the escort. Handcuffing is not prohibited as such, but the power to handcuff is to be exercised in extreme cases only for security purposes, that is to say, to prevent the escape of the accused from custody and to meet the present danger of escape breaking out of the police control.

S. N. Sahay, J.

1. This is a writ petition for directing the respondents not to handcuff the petitioner when he is brought to court or taken back to jail. The petitioner is at present detained in jail and is facing trial in certain cases.

2. We have heard learned Counsel for the petitioner and learned A.G.A. at length. The law with regard to the handcuffing of the prisoners is well-settled. In Prem Shankar Shukla v. Delhi Administration, (1980) 3 SCC 526 : 1980 SCC (Cri) 815, which is the sheet anchor of the petitioner's case, it has been laid down as a rule that handcuffing or other fetters shall not be forced on the prisoner or undertrial prisoner ordinarily. The constitutional mandate is that no prisoner shall be handcuffed or fettered routinely or merely for the convenience of custodian or escort. The only circumstance which validates incapacitation by irons an extreme measure, is that otherwise there is no other reasonable way of preventing the escape in the given circumstances. The guideline which has been provided in this behalf in para 30 of the majority judgment in the above mentioned case may be extracted below :

"Even in cases where, in extreme circumstances, handcuffs have to be put on the prisoner, the escorting authority must record contemporaneously the reasons for doing so. Otherwise, under Article 21 the procedure will be unfair and bad in law. Nor will mere recording the reasons do, as that can be a mechanical process mindlessly made. The escorting officer, whenever he handcuffs a prisoner produced in court, must show the reasons so recorded to the Presiding Judge and get his approval otherwise, there is no control over possible arbitrariness in applying handcuffs and fetters. The minions of the police establishment must make good their security recipes by getting judicial approval. And, once the court directs that handcuffs shall be off, no escorting authority can overrule judicial direction. This is implicit in Article 21, which insists upon fairness, reasonableness and justice in the very procedure which authorises stringent deprivation of life and liberty. The ratio in Maneka Gandhi case and Sunil Batra case, read in its proper light, leads us to this conclusion."

It has been further laid down in para 31 that the nature of accusation is not the criterion. The clear and present danger of escape breaking out of the police control is the determinant. And for this there must be clear material, not glib assumption, record of reasons and judicial oversight and summary hearing and direction by the court where the victim is produced. The operative portion as contained in para 38 of the majority judgment is as follows :

"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 jail warder that the rule regarding a prisoner in transit between 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."

3. In para 43 of the concurring Judgment delivered by his Lordship Hon'ble R.S. Pathak, J., as he then was, it has been observed that whether handcuffing or other restraint should be imposed on a prisoner is primarily a matter for the decision of the authority responsible for his custody and not any other. It is a judgment to be exercised with reference to each individual case. His Lordship has proceeded on to make the following observations :-

"The matter is one where the circumstances may change from one moment to another, and inevitably in some cases it may fall to the decision of the