Legislative Review Of Euthanasia

Aaryan Karwal, Jindal Global Law School

Introduction:

The concept of Euthanasia has been a highly debated issue in India, with the earliest case dating back to 19941. Moral and ethical justifiability forms the biggest debate about Euthanasia2 and it has been highly discussed by legal scholars worldwide. There has been much debate in India regarding whether or not the constitutional statute regarding the Right to Live, includes the Right to Die or not3. The general perceptions in these debates are slowly shifting from “a quantity of life” to a “quality of life” approach and the rationality of a patient's autonomy is being discussed by legislation4. Unfortunately, there is still an absence of a clear law in this case5 and hence, the responsibility lies with the courts to exercise their jurisdiction by applying necessary statutes of the constitution after examining details of appeals on a case-to-case basis.

In India, the legislature regarding Euthanasia is derived indirectly over the years through cases and judgments in the courts of law. Therefore, in order to clearly understand the Legislature regarding Euthanasia in India, it is essential to review the critical cases regarding it. Subsequently, Part I of this paper contains these cases and judgments along with the landmark judgment on Euthanasia which has derived its legislation. Furthermore, Part II contains the recommendations made by the national law commission of India along with reports by the houses of parliament and Part III contains the global perspectives of Euthanasia and legislation regarding it.