Case Comment: India: in absence of legislative action Supreme Court outlines euthanasia regime for India

• Main Author: DAM, Shubhankar
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: India; Life-sustaining treatment; Persistent vegetative state; Withdrawal; Medical Jurisprudence; Public Law and Legal Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/1334
• Institution: Singapore Management University

For nearly 37 years, Shuanbag has been in a "vegetative state," cared for and attended to by the personnel at the King Edwards Memorial (KEM) Hospital, Mumbai. In Aruna Shuanbag, author and activist, Pinki Virani, approached the Supreme Court arguing that given her "sub-human" condition, the medical personnel be directed to stop feeding Shuanbag and let her die peacefully. Relying on the distinction between active and passive euthanasia, and the reasoning in the House of Lords decision in Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] 2 W.L.R. 316, the Supreme Court concluded that passive euthanasia "should be permitted in India under certain circumstances."