India's top court upholds hanging as legal execution method

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a writ petition that challenged India's use of hanging as the sole method for executing death sentences, declining to refer the matter to a larger bench for reconsideration.

Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta concluded that the material presented before them failed to establish that lethal injection or other alternatives possessed any demonstrable advantage over hanging as a mode of execution. The petitioner had sought abolition of the hanging practice under Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which mandates that death sentences be carried out by hanging.

The bench said it was not persuaded that grounds existed to refer a 1983 three-judge bench decision to a larger bench for re-examination of the constitutional validity of Section 354(5) of the CrPC. The provision stipulates that persons sentenced to death shall be hanged by the neck until dead.

However, the court left the door open for future legal challenges. The bench clarified that dismissal of the present petition should not be construed as foreclosing further constitutional scrutiny, should compelling scientific, medical or empirical evidence emerge in the future to challenge the current execution methodology.