Dying with dignity

Ganapathi Bhat

The issue of Capital punishment, or death sentence, is back to the drawing board. But what has escaped due consideration is the appropriate method of execution which was once a raging debate. But the Supreme Court had the opportunity to analyse threadbare the procedures for execution of the prisoners condemned to death.  Acting on a petition, the SC had asked the Government to file an affidavit on the correctness of "hanging by neck until death" practiced  in India. Since Article 21 of the Indian Constitution has provided for the Right to Life, deprivation of  "dying with dignity" to the death convicts was  what bothered the SC.   

 The government has to be flexible in its approach towards the death convicts so that they can die with little anguish. The petitioner, an advocate, had contended that death by hanging was cruel and was in violation of the basic principle of dying with dignity. However, the Centre was unflinching in its stand on the suitability of hanging as a way to end a death convict's life. Its contention was that Section 354 (5) of the  Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1973 which has incorporated hanging until death, was neither barbaric nor inhuman.

 Hanging is simple, easy, quick, certain, economic, resourceful and skilful with no room for failure. It removes undue apprehensions in the convicted about the possibility of  a lingering death. Many countries employ firing squads, electrocution, lethal injections and gas inhalations.  However, hanging is preferred in a majority of the countries --Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia among others. The lethal injection method of injecting deadly chemicals into the  prisoners, manually or by machines, has met with disapproval among the convicted  themselves with chances of inducing extreme pain and discomfort. 

  Indonesia, China, North Korea  and the UAE have the "firing squad" which again is not foolproof because after 12 armed men fire at the chest of the prisoner and fail to kill him, then the prisoner is directly shot in the head: a savage way to end life in pain; not in peace.  Electrocution looks simple but may cause serious injuries to the human being.  The gas inhalation technique, once used in the US, is another harsh way of putting an end to the lives of  those destined to die.