Three years after a Supreme Court judgment legalised passive euthanasia under “exceptional circumstances,” the government has fully endorsed the apex court’s guidelines giving High Courts the power to decide on applications seeking permission to withdraw life support in the best interest of the patient.
On March 7, 2011, a Bench of Justices Markandeya Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra set out a series of guidelines for High Courts to process applications seeking passive euthanasia by “near relatives or next friend or the doctors/hospital staff.”
The Bench then observed that these guidelines would hold good until Parliament decides or passes a law on passive euthanasia. The court was deciding the case of Aruna Shaunbag, who was paralysed and slipped into a coma after a brutal attack on November 27, 1973 at Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial Hospital by a staffer.
In his written reply in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Health Minister J.P. Nadda said the guidelines of the Supreme Court should be treated as law and made binding. Mr. Nadda said the matter of mercy killing was examined with the Law Ministry. There was no proposal to enact a legislation in this regard at present, he said.
The Bench defined passive euthanasia as a process when medical treatment is withheld or withdrawn leading to the death of a terminally ill person. Passive euthanasia can be both voluntary and non-voluntary. It is voluntary if the patient requests mercy killing.
