The bench said it will limit itself to improving the guidelines it had laid down on "living will". There can only be a little tweaking of the guidelines or else it will become a review of its own 2018 judgement, it added. The top court's order notwithstanding, people wanting to get a "living will" registered have been facing problems due to cumbersome guidelines.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the Centre's response to a PIL seeking right to passive euthanasia for persons afflicted with rabies.
Thirty-five-year-old Sharad Kumar Tripathi, who is an advocate by profession, has given authority to junior advocate Amitesh Singh to decide on his health, in case of him becoming terminally-ill in the future.
What forced Justice A K Sikri, part of the five-judge bench led by CJI Dipak Misra, to dwell on economics while favouring passive euthanasia was the spiralling daily expense in hospitals to keep a terminally ill person on life support system, often spelling financial ruin for poor families.
The Supreme Court on March 9 gave legal sanction to passive euthanasia, permitting a person to draft a living will clarifying that he should not be given life support treatment if he slips into coma
The need to change euthanasia laws was triggered by the famous Aruna Shanbaug case. The top court in 2011 had recognised passive euthanasia in Aruna Shanbaug case by which it had permitted withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from patients not in a position to make an informed decision.
The ruling stems from a petition filed by an NGO 'Common Cause', who had approached the court seeking a direction for recognition of 'living will'.
The petitioner, NGO 'Common Cause', had approached the court seeking a direction for recognition of 'living will' and contended that when a medical expert said that a person afflicted with terminal disease had reached a point of no return, then she should be given the right to refuse being put on life support.
Hospitals will have to set up approval committees to vet cases of passive euthanasia and any distortion of facts before such panels may lead to a maximum of 10 years in jail and up to Rs 1 crore as fine, the Union health ministry has proposed in its re-drafted bill on the withdrawal of medical life support.
The Supreme Court decided on Tuesday to examine the more complex concept of a “living will” where removal of life support is authorised in case of an irreversible coma.
The Union health ministry last week uploaded the draft, titled Terminally Ill Patients (protection of patients and medical practitioners) Bill, on its website and has invited comments, via email, from people before June 19, 2016.
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