Right To Die Under Right To Life

17th August, 2023 - 7:06 am Categories: Legal Issues 0 Comments

Right to life as we know is a fundamental and inalienable right of every person on the earth and in India it is provided under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Right to life of a person include every such thing which is necessary for a good quality of life, livelihood and liberty and one which is necessary for a dignified life and hence the Article 21 is given a wider scope of interpretation by the Judiciary because in a dynamic society the necessities of good and dignified life keep on changing. It was this reason that the question whether the right to life provides a person right to die was raised and is since the late 20^th century a topic of debate. The question was first raised in the GianKaur v. State of Punjab in which the apex court was of the opinion that, Right to life does not include Right to die as “right to life was a natural right embodied in Article 21, but suicide was unnatural termination or extinction of life and therefore, ‘incompatible and inconsistent’ with the concept of the right to life. The right to life includes right to live with human dignity would mean the existence of such a right up to the end of natural life.”

Though the court held that Right to die does not come under right to life but it approved passive euthanasiaon the rationale of “right to die with dignity as a part of the right to live with dignity”, and thus in the Aruna Shaunbag case the Supreme Court specified two irreversible conditions to permit Passive Euthanasia:

1. There should be consent from the closest relative of the patient.
2. The patient should be terminally ill or in a vegetative state.

The idea of passive euthanasia thus came into lime light and thus became a topic of debate as to whether passive euthanasia be legalized or not.The arguments many forward in favor are that it helps the patient to get relived of a life which is nothing without the medicine and is very painful to be alive on support of technology, the patients family members are relieved of the physical, emotional, economical and mental stress upon them and most importantly in a country like India where the heath care system is so incompatible that we don’t even have appropriate no. of beds in the hospital’s (the problem is even worse in the covid-19 pandemic times), is it correct to let a patient who has no chance of living a normal life again, use the resources than a needy person who has a chance.

There are also people who oppose these arguments on the basis that, “the poor people could resort to this in order to avoid the pecuniary difficulties of medication. Old and destitute are sometimes considered as burden and people can make use of this to shove off their responsibilities.”

Regardless of these arguments the Supreme Court in 2018 in Common Cause Society v. Union of India recognized and gave sanction to passive euthanasia and living will/ advance directive. The implication of this is that from now Right to Die with Dignity is a Fundamental Right, but the bottom line is that passive euthanasia is apt to the extent where the person has no chance of living and there is consent of relative and in a country like India there is a high chance of this right if given being misused as people due to either economical reason or considering the patient as a burden on them allow passive euthanasia and thus, there need to be a proper guideline for this right and more over the use of it must depend from case to case basis.

Another question with Right to life is that does Right to Life include Suicide?

No, suicide can in no case be defined under right to life infact under the former section 309 of IPC suicidal attempt for made a criminal offence which would also attract a penalty but latter this section for removed after so much opposition of various courts in India as it “attempts in doubly punishing the man who is tremendous pain and would be undergoing ignominy because of failure to commit suicide.”The section 309 was considered unconstitutional and it was concluded that the penal laws need to be more humane in dealing with cases like these in P. Rathinam v. State of U.O.I.

In a country like India where half of the population is below poverty line, there right to suicide cannot be granted to its citizen as it will lead to more and more attempts to it and thus, inspire other depressed citizens for the same. The happiness index of India in the list of 149 countries is 139 which shows the mental condition of the people here and more over in the recent times there has been an increase in the case of suicide by students, unemployed people and according to a WHO report “the average suicide rate in India is 10.9 for every lakh people and the majority of people who commit suicide are below 44 years of age.” Thus a country withsuch a mental health status cannot be given right to die and thus in the GianKaur v. State of Punjab the court overruled the P. Rathinam v. State of U.O.I. judgment by stating that “Right to die by ‘Suicide’ cannot be granted to any person” and held that section 309 is not violative of article 14 but the punishment awarded under this section is not compulsory and more on the discretion of court.

It is the duty of society to emotionally help a person committing suicide to overcome that certain state of mind because the world is full of depressed people and if we legalize and everyone follows the suicidal path it will give a wrong idea to other depressed to do so and thus, affect the mental stability of the whole society.

Author: Kushagra Singh, A Student at NMIMS, Navi Mumbai, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us via email to chhavi@khuranaandkhurana.com or at Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorney.