Passive euthanasia closely related to life with dignity: Chandrachud

The Supreme Court on Friday relied upon the constitutional values of liberty, dignity, autonomy and privacy to allow passive euthanasia and advance medical directives, saying both bore a close association to the human urge to live with dignity.

The dignity of life must encompass dignity in the stages of living which lead up to the end of life. To deprive an individual of dignity towards the end of life is to deprive the individual of a meaningful existence. Hence, the Constitution protects the legitimate expectation of every person to lead a life of dignity until death occurs, Justice D Y Chandrachud held in his separate and concurring judgement.

Passing directions under Article 142 (extra-ordinary power) under the Constitution, Justice Chandrachud upheld the legality of passive euthanasia (voluntary and nonvoluntary) and recognised the importance of advance directives.

"Every individual has a constitutionally protected expectation that the dignity which attaches to life must subsist even in the culminating phase of human existence.

"The right of an individual to refuse medical treatment is unconditional. Neither the law nor the Constitution compels an individual who is competent and able to take decisions, to disclose the reasons for refusing medical treatment nor is such a refusal subject to the supervisory control of an outside entity," Justice Chandrachud said.

The decision by a treating doctor to withdraw medical intervention in the case of a patient in the terminal stage of illness or in a persistently vegetative state or the like where artificial intervention will merely prolong the suffering and agony of the patient is protected by the law. Where the doctor has acted in such a case in the best interest of the patient and in bona fide discharge of the duty of care, the law will protect the reasonable exercise of a professional decision, he added.