Read Time: 07 minutes

Synopsis

The Delhi High Court, recently, dismissed a writ petition of a 30-year-old ex-student of Punjab University who has been bedridden due to diffuse axonal injury, permanent vegetative state, and quadriplegia with 100% disability. The ex-student has approached the court seeking a directive for a Medical Board to examine his health condition for the administration of passive euthanasia.

“In the present case, the facts indicate that the Petitioner is not being kept alive mechanically and he is able to sustain himself without any extra external aid. The Petitioner is thus living and no one, including a physician, is permitted to cause death of another person by administering any lethal drug, even if the objective is to relieve the patient from pain and suffering”, the bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad held. 

An ex-student of the Punjab University approached the court seeking a directive for a Medical Board to examine his health condition for the administration of passive euthanasia. The ex-student had sustained several head injuries after falling from the fourth floor of his paying guest house. Due to such injuries, he has remained bedridden due to diffuse axonal injury, permanent vegetative state, and quadriplegia with 100% disability. 

The court referred to the case of Common Cause v Union of India, (2018) 5 SCC 1, and reiterated that addressed the issue of whether a person should be allowed to remain in a state of incurable passivity, suffering from pain and anguish, in the name of the Hippocratic oath, or if such suffering should be considered merely a state of mind and a relative perception. 

The Court questioned if the word ‘death’ should be viewed as a meaningless rhetorical term or if the person should be allowed to cross into death painlessly and with dignity. This raised the legal question of whether a person should be given treatments that keep them alive without awareness of their surroundings or if their dignity should be upheld by easing the dying process. 

Moreover, the court noted that there is a risk of abuse by beneficiaries desiring the patient's death for inheritance, causing treating physicians to fear criminal and social repercussions. Ethical dilemmas and social stigmas further complicate decisions. The law must intervene to alleviate individual agony and dispel collective perceptions, clarifying whether it permits accelerating the dying process without suffering when life is inevitably decaying, and if so, to what extent.

The court observed that the facts of this case indicated that the ex-student was not kept alive mechanically and could sustain himself without external aid. Therefore, no one, including a physician, was permitted to cause his death by administering lethal drugs, even to relieve pain and suffering. 

The court, therefore, held that active euthanasia was legally impermissible. Since the ex-student was not on life support and survived without external aid, the Court would not intervene to grant a legally untenable request.

For Petitioner: Advocates Neeraj Gupta, Manish Jain, Vikas Kumar Verma, Chelsi, Anchal, Rajesh Kumar and Shanky Jain.
For Respondent: Standing Counsel Ripu Daman Bhardwaj and Additional Standing Counsel Udit Malik with Advocates Kushagra Kumar, Abhinav Bhardwaj, Satya Ranjan Swain, Kautilya Birat, and Vishal Chanda

Case Title: Harish Rana v Union Of India & Ors (2024:DHC:4988)