The Supreme Court recently heard the Union government’s submission that it is still examining whether a more humane and less painful method of execution could replace hanging. A petition arguing that the cruelty of hanging violates the right to live with dignity will now be heard next on January 21, 2026. The Centre stands by hanging, calling it the “safest and quickest” option, but has hinted it is open to considering other methods.
This renewed scrutiny comes when India’s death row population of 564 is the highest in nearly two decades. Trial courts have sentenced more than 100 people to death annually in recent years, often without proper consideration of mitigating circumstances. Despite the Supreme Court’s clear direction in Manoj vs State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) that such factors must be evaluated to prevent retributive sentencing, compliance remains poor. The larger constitutional issue—ensuring fairness and consistency in awarding death sentences—is before a Constitution Bench in a pending suo motu case. The overdue outcome will bring long-needed clarity to a system often marked by arbitrariness and moral unease.
Death penalty supporters often view it as society’s way of answering extreme acts of cruelty—by satisfying our collective sense of justice and warning against recurrence. But experience shows it does not clearly prevent violent crime, nor does it ensure justice. The risk of wrongful execution, the inability to rehabilitate, and the moral contradiction of taking life in the name of law continue to shadow its practice.
The top court has reminded judges not to be swayed by the brutality of crimes or public outrage, reminding them that penology now centres on the preservation of human life. Significantly, some recent judgements show a preference for alternatives to execution. Life imprisonment without remission—brought in after the Nirbhaya case for aggravated rape—has increasingly become the middle path for serious crimes that could otherwise attract the death penalty. As over 113 countries move towards abolition, India’s continued reliance on capital punishment appears increasingly out of step with moral progress. To focus only on the mechanics of execution, rather than on whether the state should kill at all, is to lose sight of justice’s higher purpose—to balance accountability with humanity.