What Harish Rana judgment means for euthanasia in India
India Today
Reiterating the right to die with dignity, the Supreme Court allowed the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment for Harish Rana, laying down safeguards for passive euthanasia and end-of-life care.
Following the Supreme Court verdict in the Harish Rana case, there are many questions being asked across the country, foremost among them: what happens next?
The Supreme Court has made it clear once again. Indian law does not allow active euthanasia - meaning that any active steps to cause death cannot be taken. No injection or any other act to speed up the process of dying can be undertaken.
What Indian law allows, and what the Supreme Court has reiterated, is the right to die with dignity and the “best interest” of the patient by withdrawing medical intervention that prolongs life. Only medical treatment can be withdrawn, and only when artificially prolonging life has no scope of improving the patient’s condition and is violating their dignity and privacy.
Even in such a scenario, the Primary Medical Board and the Secondary Medical Board have to agree on the course of action.
For Harish, this now means that the PEG tubes, which were administering nutrition and hydration, can be removed.
The bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Vishwanath held that Clinically Administered Nutrition and Hydration (CANH) is a “medical treatment” within the definition of the permitted course of action.
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This moment comes days after the Supreme Court allowed Harish Rana to die with dignity – a historic first court-ordered case of passive euthanasia in India. The court acknowledged the medical opinion that Rana will never recover and that the tubes that feed him and keep him alive are only prolonging his pain.
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