Convicts sentenced to death penalty must die in peace and not in pain, observed the Supreme Court on Friday as it asked the Government to suggest alternate modes to execute a death convict other than the present practice of hanging them by the neck.
A petition filed by an advocate Rishi Malhotra claimed that hanging by neck was very painful and such a method should be discontinued, particularly when the world-over there are other techniques to execute death sentence.
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud issued notice on the petition to the Centre wanting to know whether the Government was open to consider other less-painful means to execute death penalty. The matter will be taken up after three weeks. The bench observed, "A convict facing death sentence should die in peace and not in pain." The petition sought quashing of Section 354(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code which stated that a person be hanged by the neck till he is dead. Further, Malhotra cited the 187th Report of the law Commission that termed the present hanging method as too painful for the convict and advocated for its removal from the CrPC.
The petition suggested other modes of execution practiced in various countries that included death by electrocution, shooting or lethal injection. With the development of modern day science, the petitioner urged the Court to explore other possibilities of executing death penalty as even a condemned prisoner had right to die with dignity under Article 21.
The petition said that the world-over the accepted principle on carrying out execution is to have it quick and simple. "The act of execution should produce immediate unconsciousness passing quickly into the death. It should be decent. It should not involve mutilation," said the petition claiming that the process of hanging takes almost 40 minutes as compared to shooting where the person is dead within seconds.