Euthanasia:
SC Allows 1st Passive Euthanasia in Harish Rana Case.
- The Supreme Court (SC), in Harish Rana vs Union of India Case (2026), permitted passive euthanasia by allowing withdrawal of life support, marking the first application of the 2018 Common Cause judgment recognising the right to die with dignity.
- The Supreme Court of India allowed passive euthanasia for Harish Rana, a 32-year-old man in a permanent vegetative state for over 13 years, permitting withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment under medical supervision.
- The ruling applies earlier guidelines recognising the right to die with dignity under Article 21, marking India’s first court-approved implementation of passive euthanasia.
- Harish Rana was a 19-year-old student in Chandigarh when he fell from a fourth-floor building in August 2013.
- The accident caused catastrophic brain injuries, leaving him in a Permanent Vegetative State (PVS) with 100% quadriplegia (paralysis of all four limbs).
- For nearly 13 years, he was sustained solely through Clinically Assisted Nutrition and Hydration (CANH) via surgically installed PEG tubes, with no sign of improvement.
- After the Delhi High Court dismissed his father’s plea in 2024, the family approached the Supreme Court, which finally permitted passive euthanasia.
- The SC accepted the unanimous recommendation of medical boards and family members to withdraw life support and directed All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, to admit Harish Rana to its palliative care department and formulate a “robust, palliative, and end-of-life care plan.”
- It emphasized that withdrawal must be carried out in a humane manner, managing pain and symptoms to ensure the patient’s dignity is preserved and that it does not amount to “abandonment” of the patient.
- SC held that Clinically Administered Nutrition (CAN) administered through PEG (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy) tubes constitutes “medical treatment”, not merely basic care.
- Therefore, its withdrawal falls within the scope of passive euthanasia and can be approved by the medical boards if it is not in the patient’s best interest.
- To prevent unnecessary suffering, the SC waived the standard 30-day reconsideration period, allowing for the immediate implementation of the medical boards’ decision to withdraw CAN.
