Umar Khalid brought in handcuffs due to ‘miscommunication’: police

Handcuffing prisoner strikes at the heart of his or her personal liberty: advocate

Umar Khalid being taken by police to court in handcuffs  | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A day after former JNU student leader Umar Khalid was produced before a Delhi court in handcuffs following which the court sought an inquiry report from the Delhi Police Commissioner in the matter, senior police officers cited “confusion” and “miscommunication” in court orders as the reason.

A senior police officer from the Delhi Police 3rd Battalion, which is responsible for escorting undertrials from jail to court, said, “It was a matter of confusion… A court had earlier issued orders to handcuff Umar Khalid in the JNU sedition case but in another order passed on January 17, it had withdrawn the same but it was not communicated to us…”

The officer added, “Due to the miscommunication, the jail’s warrant register mentioned that Khalid had to be brought in handcuffs, so we brought him to court in handcuffs… However, after his counsels pointed out that there is no such order in this regard, we removed them.”

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat had asked the Delhi CP to file an inquiry report in the matter after Khalid’s counsel, senior advocate Trideep Pais, informed that Khalid was brought to the court in handcuffs despite contrary orders being passed by two different courts.

In an order passed on January 17, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma had said there were no previous orders to bring Khalid to court in handcuffs in the JNU sedition case and that he will be produced “in a routine manner without using handcuffs and fetters”.

Similarly, in an order passed by Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav in May last year, the court had noted that the Delhi police’s apprehension regarding Umar Khalid and United Against Hate (UAH) founder Khalid Saifi escaping from court “was devoid of merits” as they were “admittedly not previous convicts” and “not even gangsters”.

In a 1980 Supreme Court judgement, “Prem Kumar Shukla vs. Delhi administration”, the court had noted that handcuffing is “prima facie inhuman” and “unreasonable”. “Absent fair procedure and objective monitoring to inflict ‘irons’ is to resort to zoological strategies repugnant to Article 21,” the apex court had observed.

According to law, the police has to take prior permission from the court if they want to produce an undertrial in handcuffs or fetters and in their application, lay out reasonable apprehension about the prisoner escaping from police custody.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves said producing Khalid in fetters was “meant to create a perception that he was a dreaded criminal” even before the case has gone to trial. “It was illegal for the Delhi police to handcuff Khalid as the same cannot be done without a magistrate’s order… Time and again, courts have pointed out that handcuffing a prisoner strikes at the heart of his or her personal liberty,” he said.