JUDGMENT

Chandrachud, CJI. - In this batch of Writ Petitions, the petitioners were sentenced to death for the offence of murder under section 302 of the Penal Code. They have nothing in common except that they committed murders and have been sentenced to death. The sentence of death imposed upon them has become final in the sense that the Special Leave Petitions, Appeals, Review Petitions and Mercy Petitions filed by them have been dismissed, some of these more than once. The main question which has been raised by the petitioners in these writ petitions relates to the validity of the mode of execution of the death sentence.

2. Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that:

When any person is sentenced to death the sentence shall direct that he be hanged by the neck till he is dead.

The petitioners challenge the constitutional validity of this provision on the ground that hanging a convict by rope is a cruel and barbarous method of executing a death sentence, which is violative of Article 21 of the Constitution. That article provides that:

No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.

3. The validity of