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"I have noticed that accused persons are handcuffed while being brought to the various Courts in Bhavnagar. Even though, I had drawn the attention of the District Superintendent of Police by writing a letter to him in this regard, the practice of handcuffing the undertrial accused persons without authorisation from the concerned Magistrate or Court continues. I have noticed that the practice of handcuffing undertria) accused persons without authorisation from the Magistrate or Courts continues throughout the State of Gujarat despite specific directions of Hon'ble the Supreme Court. I have myself seen accused persons in handcuffed'condition at the City Sessions Court in Ahmedabad and learnt that this happens daily. In all probability, there will not be a single case where the Police authorities approached any Magistrate or Judge for permission to handcuff an accused. The Constables ought not be blamed since they adopt this practice under instructions from their superior officers. It would, therefore, be necessary to take appropriate actisn against the higher officers in the Police and concerned Departments of the Government of Gujarat. Accordingly, I request that this letter and the enclosed report may kindly be put up before the concerned Bench of Hon'ble the Supreme Court for taking appropriate action in this regard. I may suggest that notices may be served in this regard to the following parties :

18. In all the cases, where a person arrested by police, is produced before the Magistrate the person concerned shall not be handcuffed unless special orders in that respect are obtained from the Magistrate at the time of the grant of the remand.

19. When the police arrests a person in execution of a warrant of arrest obtained from a Magistrate, the person so arrested shall not be handcuffed unless the police has also obtained orders from the Magistrate for the handcuffing of the person to be so arrested.

10.1 The effect of the decisions of the Supreme Court in Sunil Batra and Prem Shankar Shukla case (supra), to the extent that they recognize the permissibility of imposing handcuffs and the power of the concerned authority to do so in extreme circumstances cannot be taken away by a truncated reading of the decision of the Supreme Court in Citizens for Democracy case (supra) and the reading of that entire decision shows that the two-Judge Bench was at pains to ensure that the directions issued in those earlier cases were followed and in Paragraph 14 of the judgment, it was even mentioned that the Supreme Court in Batra case and Shukla case elaborately dealt with the extreme situation when the police and jail authorities can resort to handcuffing of the prisoners inside and outside the jail. Therefore, the direction contained in Paragraph 21 of the judgment in Citizens for Democracy case (supra) requiring the authorities "to meticulously obey the above mentioned directions" and stating that any violation of any of the directions issued by the Court by any rank of police in the country or any member in the jail establishment shall be summarily punishable under the Contempt of Courts Act apart from other penal consequences under law, cannot be construed so as to mean that every case of handcuffing even if justified on the ratio of the decisions in Batra case and Shukla case (supra) should result in dealing with the officer concerned under the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act. In other words, to the extent to which handcuffing is held to be permissible in certain extreme circumstances in Prem Shukla case (supra) and Batra case (supra), there can arise no question of proceeding against the officer concerned on the ground that he has committed 'criminal contempt' by not obtaining a prior permission of the Magistrate for the handcuffing of the person concerned.

10.2 From the ratio of the decisions of the Constitution Bench in Sunil Batra case (supra) and the three-Judge Bench in Prem Shukla case (supra), it clearly follows that there may be extreme cases where the power to impose handcuffs can be exercised by the concerned authority and that the discretion to impose irons is conferred on the Superintendent of Prison under Section 56. This discretion can also be exercised within the bounds of the directions in Batra and Shukla cases even in relation to the undertrial prisoners who are brought to the Court, in view of the provisions of Section 55 of the Prisons Act. In cases of 'credible tendency for violence and escape', such iron restraint is permissible if other alternatives are unworkable, but the escorting authority must record contemporaneously, reasons for doing so and whenever he handcuffs a prisoner produced in Court must show the reasons so recorded to the presiding Judge and get his approval as directed by the Supreme Court. The handcuffs cannot be imposed arbitrarily or at the whim or caprice of the escort. The authority should consider the case of each prisoner individually and decide whether the prisoner is a person who having regard to the circumstances, general conduct, behaviour and character will attempt to escape or disturb peace by becoming violent. Whether handcuffs or other restraint should be imposed on a prisoner is primarily a matter for the decision of the authority responsible for his custody, as held by Justice Pathak in Prem Shukla case (supra). There may be cases where the decision may have to be taken by the escorting authority midway on imposing a restraint on the prisoner who is being escorted, as held in Prem Shukla case (supra). However, in such event, the Court must be informed of the circumstances in which and the justification for imposing a restraint on the body of the accused. Therefore, there can be cases where there may not be time enough to obtain prior permission and such extreme circumstances may warrant handcuffing the prisoner and in such cases, it cannot be said that such authority has undermined the dignity of the trial Court whose permission could not be obtained earlier. In such cases, which are not cases of lowering or tending to lower the authority of the Court by not getting prior permission for handcuffing, it cannot be said mat the act of handcuffing of the prisoner to the extent that it is justified on the ratio of the Prem Shukla case and Sunil Basra case would amount to 'criminal contempt' of the subordinate Court so as to warrant initiation of the proceedings under Section 10 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. However, any handcuffing which is not warranted on the ratio of the aforesaid decisions would create such liability on the part of the authority imposing handcuffs in wanton disregard of the requirement of obtaining prior permission of the magisterial Court for imposing handcuffs on the prisoners to be brought to the Court or taken back to the prison.