Why it is in news?

• There is no viable method at present other than hanging to execute condemned prisoners.
• Lethal injections are unworkable and often fail, the Centre told the Supreme Court .
• The government was responding to a query from the court on alternative modes of execution.
• The court had previously said a condemned convict should die in peace and not in pain.
• A human being is entitled to dignity even in death.
• Issuing notice, the court had asked the government to consider the the “dynamic progress” made in modern science to adopt painless methods of causing death.

Death penalty unquestioned

• The court has already clarified that it is not questioning the constitutionality of death penalty, which has been well-settled by the apex court, including inDeena versus Union of India and earlier in the Bachan Singh case reported in 1980.
• Section 354 (5), which mandates death by hanging, of the Code of Criminal Procedure has already been upheld.
• However the Bench had in an earlier hearing favoured a re-look at the practice of hanging to death a
• “the Constitution of India is an organic and compassionate document which recognises the sanctity of flexibility of law as situations change with the flux of time”.
• Petitioner: “When a man is hanged to death, his dignity is destroyed,”

Source

The Hindu