New Delhi, The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will hear arguments on January 21 on a petition that seeks to replace the current method of executing death row convicts by hanging with more humane alternatives.
A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was hearing a plea that calls for abolishing hanging as a mode of execution and replacing it with less painful methods such as lethal injection, electrocution, shooting, or a gas chamber.
Attorney General R. Venkataramani requested the bench to list the case for hearing in January 2026.
“This has been hanging like hanging,” senior advocate Rishi Malhotra, who filed the petition in 2017, said in court.
Venkataramani responded, “Nobody is going to be hanged now. There is no worry at all.”
Malhotra reminded the court that the Attorney General had earlier informed it that the Centre was considering forming a committee to review the issues raised in the plea.
“I am told some proceedings have happened, but I am not sure whether they have yielded any result. Let me pursue that matter and come back to report to the court,” Venkataramani said.
The bench then scheduled the matter for hearing on January 21 next year.
Earlier, during the October 15 hearing, the court had observed that the government was reluctant to evolve on the issue. The observation came after the Centre said it may not be “very feasible” to offer convicts the choice of lethal injection as a mode of execution.
Malhotra had argued that condemned prisoners should at least be given the choice between hanging and lethal injection.
In March 2023, the Supreme Court said it may consider forming a panel of experts to determine whether hanging is a proportionate and less painful method of execution. The court also asked the Centre to provide better data on different modes of execution.
The bench clarified, however, that it could not direct the legislature to adopt a specific method of carrying out death sentences.
Back in 2018, the Centre had strongly defended the provision for execution by hanging, arguing that other methods such as firing or lethal injection were not necessarily less painful.
In its counter affidavit, the Ministry of Home Affairs said that hanging was “quick, simple” and did not add unnecessary suffering to the prisoner.
The affidavit was filed in response to a public interest litigation that referred to the 187th Law Commission Report, which had recommended removing hanging from the statute as a method of execution.
