The Orissa High Court on Monday completed hearing and reserved its verdict on a petition filed by the State Government seeking to allow the police to handcuff the arrested mafia Dhalsamant brothers during their transit on police remand.
Sushil and Sushant were arrested last month for their alleged involvement in abduction and murder of their two former associates. In the meantime, the police have already taken the accused on remand for 19 days in three phases and each time a lower court here has rejected the police plea to handcuff them.
Challenging the lower court order, the Government had approached the High Court to allow the police to handcuff the accused persons by setting aside the lower court order. The government had relied on Rule 241 of the Orissa Police Rules on ‘Restraint of Prisoners” in which it has been left to the discretion of the dispatching officer to restrain a prisoner by handcuffing, if he makes an attempt to escape.
However, opposing the Government’s petition, the brothers through their advocate urged the High Court to dismiss the Government’s plea and affirm the lower court decision as the same was neither illegal nor against the law.
Their advocate Soura Chandra Mohapatra cited several judgments of the Supreme Court in which the apex court has restrained the police and jail officials from handcuffing the prisoners.
“We declare, direct and lay down as a rule that handcuff or other fetters shall not be forced on a prisoner-convicted or under trial-while lodged in any jail or while transporting or in transit from one jail to another or from jail to court and back,” Mohapatra said, quoting the judgement of the apex court passed in the case of Citizen of Democracy Vs State of Assam in the year 1995.
Mohaptra also pointed out that the Orissa Police Rules is not an enactment but a set of administrative instruction to police personnel and the same is no more in operation in view of the laws laid down by the Supreme Court on the issue in 1980.
Justice BK Nayak, however, reserved his verdict on the application of the Government after completion of arguments from both the sides.