Eminent lawyer and former vice-chairman of the Law Commission of India NM Ghatate feels that in a country like ours, while death penalty cannot be abolished, it needs to be humanised. "While I do not support the call for abolition of death sentence, it is time that the apex court rethinks the issue and allows lethal injections," said Ghatate, who has also authored a well-researched book on death penalty. Ghatate, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, pointed out that under Indian law, death penalty is spelt out by the phase: 'hanging by the neck till the prisoner is dead'. He adds that in India, unlike other countries with death penalty, since a post-mortem is not carried out, the reason behind the person's death is never ascertained. Several countries have now abolished the death penalty, and in the United States, where death penalty is legal is 31 states, the country's apex court struck down the mandatory death penalty in 1987.

Source: dna October 29, 2017 01:18 UTC