The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to Centre on a plea to do away with the current practice of death by hanging to execute convicts.
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The apex court also urged the government to come up with alternative modes of execution and give a detailed reply within three weeks.
Hanging is barbaric, cruel
A plea filed by advocate Rishi Malhotra referred to the Article 21 (Right to Life) of the Indian Constitution and argued that convicts too have the right to have dignity in death. He termed death by hanging "barbaric and cruel."
"Our Constitution is a compassionate one, which recognises the principle of sanctity of life," the Supreme Court said while hearing the plea.
"Legislature can think of some other means by which a convict, who under law has to face death sentence, should die in peace and not in pain," Chief Justice Dipak Misra was quoted as saying by the media.
The plea also challenged the constitutional validity of section 354 (5) in the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which stipulates that a death convict should be hanged by the neck till he or she is dead.
Death should be painless
The bench headed by CJI Misra stressed on the need of painless death saying, "Prima facie,... with the invention of various modes in modern science, the legislature can think of some other mode by which a convict who in law has to face death sentence should die in peace but not in pain, for it has been said since centuries nothing can be equated with painless death."
34 years ago, the top court had upheld the legal validity of the provision of hanging to execute prisoners who are awarded death sentence and had refused to strike down the provision of the CPC.
Alternatives for hanging
Malhotra suggested that hanging by the neck could be replaced with methods such as intravenous lethal injection or shooting.
However, another member of the bench Justice DY Chandrahud said that shooting had an authoritarian streak to it.
Chandrahud felt that lethal injection was not a good option either as the convict would have to undergo 45 minutes of suffering before dying.
