SC rejects plea seeking abolition of practice of execution by hanging
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea seeking abolition of the practice of executing a death row convict by hanging and replacing it with methods such as intravenous lethal injection.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said the material placed before it does not establish that lethal injection has any added advantage over hanging as a mode of execution of a death sentence.
The bench said it was not persuaded that a case was made out for referring a 1983 decision of a three-judge bench to a larger bench for reconsideration of the constitutional validity of Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
Section 354(5) says that when any person is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that he be hanged by the neck till he is dead.
"Before parting, we clarify that the dismissal of the present writ petition must not be understood as foreclosing future constitutional scrutiny, should compelling scientific, medical or empirical evidence emerge ...
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