NEW DELHI: The Centre today strongly supported a legal provision that a death row convict would only be hanged to death and told the Supreme Court that other modes of execution like lethal injections and firing were not less painful.
The response of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) was filed after the Apex Court had termed the Constitution as a “compassionate” and “organic” guiding book and asked it to consider changing the law so that a convict, facing death penalty, dies “in peace and not in pain”.
“Execution, as contemplated under section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, is not barbaric, inhuman and cruel as well as in compliance with safeguard no. 9 of the resolutions adopted by the ECOSOC,” the affidavit filed before a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said.
The safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty approved by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) resolution of 1984 says “Where capital punishment occurs, it shall be carried out so as to inflict the minimum possible suffering.” (AGENCIES)
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