Amar Jesani on Doctors & Death Penalty

In last one decade, the law and judiciary have made systematic efforts to push doctor to participate in the death penalty. In 1995, the media reported a ruling of the two-judges bench of the Supreme Court in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a lawyer opposing the stipulation in the Punjab Jail Manual to keep the body hanging for half an hour after the execution; and demanded that the state should be using potassium cyanide instead of hanging for the execution. While the Court did not accept the latter prayer, it did agree that keeping the body hanging for half an hour was barbarous and so ruled that “a convict shall remain hanging only till he is declared dead by the medical officer”. This little known judgment makes it mandatory for a doctor to examine the executed person in the state of hanging every few minutes to look for sign of life and if found alive, ask the hangman to continue with the hanging!!