New Delhi, Aug. 19 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to issue any judicial mandate for replacing hanging with another "less painful or humane" method of execution, holding that no case had been made out for reconsidering the court's 1983 judgment upholding hanging as constitutionally valid. At the same time, a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta clarified that its dismissal of the challenge would not foreclose a future constitutional examination if compelling scientific, medical or empirical evidence were to emerge showing that the factual and scientific basis of the 1983 ruling had been materially displaced. The bench also left it open to the Union government to undertake a comprehensive review of the existing method through an expert body comprising specialists in law, forensic medicine, neuroscience, penology and allied disciplines to examine whether an alternative could better minimise unnecessary pain while preserving the dignity of condemned prisoners. The court was hearing a petition filed by senior advocate Rishi Malhotra, appearing in person, challenging the constitutional validity of execution by hanging under Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, now reflected in Section 393(5) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which mandates that a death sentence be carried out by hanging. The bench held that the constitutional validity of hanging had already been settled by a three-judge bench in Deena v Union of India and that the scope for a two-judge bench to interfere with that ruling was "extremely limited". It invoked the principle of stare decisis, saying a smaller bench could not depart from the ratio of a larger bench decision that had stood for over four decades unless it was demonstrated that the earlier ruling had been rendered unconstitutional because of a significant constitutional development, legislative amendment or cogent scientific and empirical evidence....