The Supreme Court lawyer, Rishi Malhotra had filed the petition before the apex court seeking a direction from it to provide an alternate method of execution other than hanging.
The Centre in its counter affidavit over a plea seeking an alternative method of execution other than hanging on Tuesday submitted to the Supreme Court that hanging is far safer and quicker than lethal injections or firing squads.
The Supreme Court lawyer, Rishi Malhotra had filed the petition before the apex court seeking a direction from it to provide an alternate method of execution other than hanging.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) sought to declare that the right to die by a dignified procedure of death as a fundamental right as defined under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The Central Government, in its counter affidavit, had stated that hanging as a mode of execution is easy to assemble.
Quick and simple and free from anything that would unnecessarily sharpen the poignancy of the prisoner's apprehension.
Recently, the Centre on April 21 cleared the amendment in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to award death sentence to the rapists of children below the age of 12.
Earlier on Monday, the Delhi High Court asked the Centre if it had done any research or scientific assessment before coming out with an ordinance to award death penalty for rape of girls below the age of 12.
The Union Cabinet, two days ago, cleared the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance 2018, which proposes stringent punishments, ranging from a minimum of 20 years to life term or death, for rape of girls under the age of 12 years. If the victim is less than 16 years and more than 12 years, the ordinance has increased the minimum punishment from 10 years to 20 years and the maximum has been set at imprisonment for the rest of the convict's life. The Centre's decision came in the wake of a nationwide outrage over cases of sexual assault and murder of minors in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and Surat in Gujarat, and the rape of a girl in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh. The high court today said the government was "not even looking at the root cause" or "educating people" as the offenders are often found to be below the age of 18 years and in majority of the cases, the perpetrator is someone from the family or known to them.
The high court was dealing with an old PIL that challenged the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2013, in which a penal provision -- minimum of seven years of jail term -- for a rape convict was included and the court's discretion to award less than that was taken away. "Did you carry out any study, any scientific assessment that death penalty is a deterrent to rape? Have you thought of the consequences to the victim? How many offenders would allow their victims to survive now that rape and murder have the same punishment," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar asked the government.
(With ANI and PTI Inputs)
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 "'Far safer and quicker,' Centre defends death by hanging in Supreme Court")
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