{"id":194395,"date":"2022-07-06T17:07:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T11:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=194395"},"modified":"2022-07-06T17:09:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T11:39:44","slug":"handcuffing-a-judicial-tap-and-the-long-arm-of-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/handcuffing-a-judicial-tap-and-the-long-arm-of-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Handcuffing, a judicial tap, and the long arm of the law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cHandcuffing, a judicial tap, and the long arm of the law\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 6th<\/sup> July 2022.<\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS 2 Important Provisions of the Constitution of India<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>: Fundamental Rights; Handcuffing<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: Recently, the Karnataka High Court, in\u00a0Suprit Ishwar Divate vs The State of Karnataka<\/em><\/strong>, passed a verdict in which Rs. 2 lakh compensation was awarded to an accused, for handcuffing.<\/p>\n

He was handcuffed without recording the reasons in the police case diary.<\/p>\n

What are the principles of handcuffing?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There can be three different occasions<\/strong> when a person can be legally handcuffed,<\/p>\n

(1) An accused on his arrest and before he is produced before the magistrate;<\/p>\n

(2) An under-trial prisoner during transit from jail to the court and back; and<\/p>\n

(3) A convict being transported from jail to the court and back.<\/p>\n

If a person is under the judicial custody<\/strong> of the court, the court\u2019s permission is required for handcuffing except under emergent circumstances.<\/p>\n

Circumstances<\/strong><\/h5>\n

An accused need not be handcuffed on arrest, in normal circumstances<\/strong>. Further, the officers are allowed to resort to handcuffing only under exceptional circumstances.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In\u00a0Prem Shankar Shukla vs Delhi Administration (1980)<\/em>,<\/strong> the SC held that the norm should be that the security of an arrestee or a convict be increased to prevent him\/her from escaping. However, the handcuffing<\/strong> can be allowed only when the escape of the arrestee or a convict cannot be prevented without the use of handcuffs.<\/p>\n

In case of handcuffing<\/strong>, the arresting officer must record the reasons in the police diary.<\/p>\n

Further, the court must inquire with the person arrested as to whether he had been handcuffed or not. It will be the duty of the court to do judicial\/court scrutiny of the recorded reasons and then approve or reject the reason.<\/p>\n

On compensation<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There is a strict liability for violating the guaranteed basic and indefeasible rights of the citizens.<\/p>\n

If there is an \u2018established infringement\u201d<\/strong> of the fundamental right<\/strong> (FR) guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

The constitutional courts are empowered to grant such relief \u2018against the state or its servants in the purported exercise of their powers\u2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Who should pay such compensation?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In\u00a0the Supreme Court has ruled that in case of violation of the FR, the state (and not the concerned officer) has to pay the compensation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was on the ground that the police officers are not personally liable for such acts. They act in their official capacity.<\/p>\n

Argument in favor of handcuffing<\/strong><\/h5>\n

It has been found there is a lack of manpower, in police stations<\/strong> or a reserve police line<\/strong> to provide sufficient escort<\/strong> to jail authorities while transporting the under-trial prisoners to court<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In addition, it is difficult at times to predict the conduct of an arrestee on the spot. For example, as per the NCRB publication on \u2018Crime in India- 2020<\/strong>\u2019, there were around 810 cases of prisoner escape from police custody in 2020. Most of them were not due to negligent police officers.<\/p>\n

Therefore, handcuffs are generally done to prevent escape and not to dehumanise criminals.<\/p>\n

What are the possible solutions?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In case if malice is found behind the use of handcuffs, the department should initiate disciplinary action<\/strong> against the errant officer<\/strong> under service conduct rules, rather than to order the payment of compensation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Karnataka HC Judgment<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The blame of non-compliance cannot be shifted only to the police officer because there is an absence of the required infrastructure. It is the state\u2019s responsibility<\/strong> to equip all police stations with adequate and necessary police personnel <\/strong>to discharge their obligations.<\/p>\n

The State governments should review the mobility of the police. It should review the requirement of additional manpowe<\/strong>r and technical gadgets<\/strong>, such as body cameras.<\/p>\n

The enforcement agencies and lower courts are duty bound to implement, in letter and spirit, the Supreme Court\u2019s directives on handcuffing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on an article \u201cHandcuffing, a judicial tap, and the long arm of the law\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 6th July 2022. Syllabus: GS 2 Important Provisions of the Constitution of India Relevance: Fundamental Rights; Handcuffing News: Recently, the Karnataka High Court, in\u00a0Suprit Ishwar Divate vs The State of… Continue reading Handcuffing, a judicial tap, and the long arm of the law<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-194395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}