The story so far: On August 18, the Supreme Court upheld hanging as the method of executing a death sentence , dismissing a PIL petition challenging its constitutional validity.
The Court held that its earlier decision upholding hanging continues to bind it and found no conclusive scientific evidence to establish that alternatives such as lethal injection are more humane. The matter was before the Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta.
Hanging by the neck was first prescribed as the method of executing a death sentence under the Code of Criminal Procedure. The long-drop method was intended to cause a fracture of the cervical vertebrae, resulting in an immediate loss of consciousness and death. The method was premised on a clinical calculation of the height and weight of the condemned. It noted that hanging is accompanied by physical suffering, pain and mental agony, and referred to international safeguards requiring the State to inflict the minimum possible suffering while carrying out a lawful death sentence. In Gian Kaur v. The argument was that this protection does not disappear when a person is sentenced to death and that even a prisoner on death row is entitled to dignity until execution. The Court did not hold that hanging is conclusively the most humane method of executing a death sentence. Rather, it held that there was insufficient basis for this two-Judge Bench to overturn a precedent that had been settled by a larger Bench and subsequently approved by a Constitution Bench.
The petitioner challenged the constitutional validity of Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, corresponding to Section 393(5) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, insofar it prescribes hanging as the sole method of executing a death sentence . The petition is from 2017. The Law Commission revisited the issue in its 187th Report in 2003. The petitioner also relied on the constitutional guarantee of dignity under Article 21. State of Punjab (1996), a Constitution Bench had held that the right to life includes the right to live with human dignity until the end of natural life.
