Death by hanging is quick, reliable: Govt

New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that “death by hanging” stands out as the most suitable mode of execution of death row convicts compared to lethal injection or shooting.

A three-judge bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud had sought a response from the Centre on a PIL filed by advocate Rishi Malhotra who has challenged the constitutionality of the method of execution of death sentence in India, i.e. by hanging by neck till the prisoner is dead.

The petitioner sought to stop death by hanging, calling it a cruel form of death that inflicts pain, injury and violates the right to die with dignity.

He said execution, as contemplated under Section 354(5) CrPC, is not only barbaric, inhuman and cruel but also against the resolutions adopted by the United Nations Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC) which had categorically resolved by way of safeguard that “where capital punishment occurs it shall be carried out so as to inflict minimum possible suffering”.

Denying this, the Centre told the apex court on Tuesday that hanging is a “quick and certain” means to execute death penalty. It is “easy to assemble”, eliminates the possibility of “lingering death” as unconsciousness supervenes almost instantaneously after the process is set in motion and death follows. It is also free from anything that would unnecessarily sharpen the poignancy of the prisoner’s apprehension, it said.

The Centre added that lethal injection, which is believed to be painless, has been contested on the ground that it leads to uncomfortable death, wherein the convict is unable to express his/her discomfort because of paralysis by the paralytic agent injected.

On the Law Commission’s recommendations against death by hanging, the Centre said the government has not accepted this recommendation.

Death by hanging, the Centre said, is not as “barbaric, inhuman and cruel” as an execution by firing squad or lethal injection, as the chances of accidents are minimal.

Using statistics to show that hanging is a safer and more reliable mode of execution, it said that while the rate of botched up executions by lethal injection is 7.12 per cent (mostly in USA), and 3.15 per cent in other ways of execution, in hanging it is 3.12 per cent.

Giving details of the horrors of death by firing squad, the Centre said that if shots fired miss the heart, the convict bleeds to death slowly. Besides, it added, it would be difficult to find volunteers for the firing squad from the country’s civilian police force.

The Centre submitted that the procedure by which a death sentence has to be executed depends on a variety of factors such as economic feasibility, availability of skilled and trained personnel, equipment and resources, rate of botched executions and is thus a matter of legislative policy that does not warrant interference of the court.

Further it noted that capital punishment is confined to a bare minimum, in the “rarest of the rare” cases, and there too a large number of death sentences are commuted to life.

Between 2012 and 2015, it said, only three executions have been carried out and these convicts had committed heinous terrorist offences.

As the apex court had already upheld Section 354 CrPC, which provides for hanging, no further interference is called for, the Centre said.

If this provision is held unconstitutional by the court, then in the absence of an alternative mode of execution there would be a vacuum in law. This would enforce a moratorium on death sentences and, with several convicts on death row, it is highly undesirable, the Centre said and sought dismissal of the writ petition.