NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to submit data to help explore a more dignified, less painful and socially acceptable way of death other than hanging while executing capital punishment.
A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha said a relook would be possible only after considering better data. It asked the Centre to compile data specifying the impact of death by hanging in terms of pain, whether science has suggested any other method of execution consistent with human dignity and whether they are available in India or abroad.
"We can have perspective on alternate methods (for executing the death row convicts). Or can we see whether this method (of hanging the convicts) satisfies the test of proportionality for it to be upheld? We must have some underlying data before we relook at it. You (Attorney General) can come back to us by next week and we can formulate a small order and constitute the committee. We can hear you on its remit (scope and ambit of the committee)," the bench said.
The CJI said although the court cannot tell the legislature to adopt a particular method for executing death sentences, it could constitute a small committee to take a relook. “We cannot tell the legislature that you adopt this method. But you can certainly argue that something may be more humane. We can look into any scientific study which shows a method is far less painful and more humane. The burden is on the Union to constantly make a survey and study,” the CJI said.
He added that the committee could consist of experts from national law universities, professors of law, doctors and scientific persons. The bench has now posted the PIL for further hearing in May saying that it was a matter for "reflection."
Lawyer Rishi Malhotra had filed the PIL in 2017 seeking to abolish the present practice of executing a death row convict by hanging and replace it with less painful methods such as "intravenous lethal injection, shooting, electrocution or gas chamber."
At the outset, Malhotra said that when a convict is hanged, his dignity stood lost which even in death is necessary and gave illustrations of other countries where other modes of execution are being followed. "Our own armed forces law provides for two choices- either by shooting or by hanging. These provisions are missing in our CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) provisions. Death by hanging is neither quick nor humane," he said.
"The question of dignity is not under contest. Even the issue of minimum amount of pain is not in contest. The question which remains is what does science offer? Does it offer lethal injections? The judgement says no. Even in America, it was found lethal injection was not right," the bench observed.
Lethal injections may also cause painful deaths and may not be humane either, it added.
Earlier in 2018, the Centre had strongly supported a legal provision that a death row convict would only be hanged to death and had told the bench that the other modes of execution like lethal injections and firing were not less painful. The counter-affidavit, filed by the joint secretary of the MHA, had said that death by hanging was "quick, simple" and free from anything that would "unnecessarily sharpen the poignancy of the prisoner."
Thirty-six states in the US have already abandoned the practice of executing convicts by hanging.
(With inputs from PTI, ENS)