• ¨     Supreme Court of India has upheld hanging as a constitutionally permissible method of executing the death penalty.

    ¨     The Court rejected the challenge seeking to replace hanging with an alternative method of execution.

    ¨     The judgment is significant in the context of capital punishment, human dignity and Article 21 of the Constitution.

    ¨     In India, the death penalty is the most severe form of criminal punishment.

    ¨     Under the existing legal framework, the execution of the death penalty is carried out by hanging.

    ¨     The death penalty should be imposed only in the “rarest of rare” cases.

    ¨     This principle aims to ensure that the most severe punishment is used only under exceptional circumstances.

    ¨     The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of hanging and dismissed the Public Interest Litigation challenging it.

    ¨     The Court declined to reconsider the legal position established in Deena v. Union of India (1983).

    ¨     The Court observed that the scientific material presented before it did not establish that any alternative method was clearly more humane than hanging.

    ¨     The Court did not consider the issue permanently settled.

    ¨     If future scientific, medical or empirical evidence fundamentally changes the assumptions underlying the Deena judgment, the issue may be reconsidered.

    ¨     The Central Government remains free to examine alternative methods of execution, keeping open the possibility of future policy or legislative changes.