New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to interfere with the existing practice of executing death-row prisoners by hanging, rejecting a public interest litigation that sought to replace it with alternative methods considered less painful.
A Bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said there was no sufficient basis to reconsider the constitutional validity of the provision that prescribes hanging as the method of carrying out a death sentence. The provision, earlier contained in Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, now corresponds to Section 393(5) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
The petition, filed by senior advocate Rishi Malhotra in 2017, had challenged hanging as the prescribed method of execution. It proposed alternatives including lethal injection, shooting, electrocution and the gas chamber, arguing that the State should adopt a procedure that causes the least possible pain and preserves the dignity of condemned prisoners.
The Court, however, stopped short of closing the door on the issue permanently. It said the Union government could conduct a detailed examination of whether another method would better meet constitutional requirements relating to human dignity and the avoidance of unnecessary suffering.
The judges indicated that such a review could involve experts from several fields, including law, forensic medicine, neuroscience and criminology. The Court also observed that the question could be considered again if convincing scientific, medical or empirical evidence concerning alternative methods becomes available.
The litigation had relied, among other things, on the Law Commission’s 187th Report, which had examined the existing method of execution. Malhotra had argued that hanging could subject a condemned prisoner to prolonged physical and psychological suffering and had advocated lethal injection as a preferable alternative.
He had also sought recognition of a right to die through a dignified procedure under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Government had defended hanging
The Centre had opposed the challenge and maintained that changing the method of execution involved wider policy considerations. In its earlier response, the government defended hanging as a comparatively quick and reliable method when carried out according to established procedures.
The Centre had also warned that alternative methods could themselves result in severe suffering if an execution went wrong. It argued that procedures such as lethal injection or firing squads were not automatically free from the possibility of complications and that a failed execution could produce an outcome that was cruel or degrading.
The government’s position became a point of discussion during the Supreme Court’s hearings last year. In October 2025, the Bench had questioned the Centre’s resistance to considering alternatives, observing that hanging was an old procedure and asking whether the government was willing to adapt to developments in science and technology.
Tuesday’s ruling leaves hanging as the legally prescribed method of executing death sentences in India for now. At the same time, the Court’s observations leave scope for the Union government to initiate a broader expert-led review and for the issue to return before the judiciary if new evidence emerges.
The decision therefore settles the immediate challenge to the statutory provision but does not necessarily end the wider debate over whether India’s method of capital punishment should evolve in light of advances in medicine, forensic science and constitutional standards of dignity.
