Its a heartbreaking scandal which had gripped India of a
nurse who spent 42 years in a brain dead coma brought on after she was brutally
raped and strangled with a dog chain.
Aruna Shanbaug suffered brain damage and had
been in a vegetative state in a Mumbai hospital since being strangled with a
dog chain and sexually assaulted by a hospital worker in 1973. Her attacker
- Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki wrapped the chain round Aruna's
neck as he sodomized her in a vacant canine experiment room where she had gone
to change. She was discovered 11 hours later, blind and suffering from a severe brain stem injury
After doing his time - 7 years in prison he
was allowed to change his name and disappear while his victim lived the rest of
her life bed ridden, being cared for by a team of doctors
and nurses at the hospital.
Her case has led India to ease some
restrictions on Euthanasia.
“Our Aruna has given our country a big thing in
the form of a law on passive euthanasia,” Virani said. - her friend and
journalist Pinki Virani told a News TV channel.
Shanbaug’s plight became a
focal point of debate on euthanasia in India after Virani appealed to India’s
top court in 1999 to allow her to die with dignity.
Indian laws do not permit
euthanasia or self-starvation to the point of death. In 2011 the Supreme Court
decided that life support could be legally removed for some terminally ill
patients in a landmark ruling that allowed “Passive Euthanasia” for the first
time. The Court specified two irreversible conditions to
permit Passive Euthanasia Law :
(I) The brain-dead for whom the ventilator can be switched off
(II)
Those in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) for whom the feed can be tapered
out and pain-managing palliatives be added, according to laid-down
international specifications.
The supervision was required to
prevent “unscrupulous” family members attempting to kill off wealthy relatives,
the Supreme Court had said.
The court however rejected
Virani’s request to stop Shanbaug being force-fed on the grounds that she was
not legally eligible to make the demand on Shanbaug’s behalf.
On December 23, 2014, Government of India re-validated the
Passive Euthanasia judgement-law in a Press Release, after stating in the Rajya
Sabha as follows: that The Honorable Supreme Court of India in its judgment dated
7.3.2011 [WP (Criminal) No. 115 of 2009], while dismissing the plea for mercy
killing in a particular case, laid down comprehensive guidelines to process
cases relating to passive euthanasia. Thereafter, the matter of mercy killing
was examined in consultation with the Ministry of Law and Justice and it has
been decided that since the Honorable Supreme Court has already laid down the
guidelines, these should be followed and treated as law in such cases. At
present, there is no proposal to enact legislation on this subject and the
judgment of the Honorable Supreme Court is binding on all. The high court rejected
active euthanasia by means of lethal injection. In the absence of a law
regulating euthanasia in India, the court stated that its decision becomes the
law of the land until the Indian parliament enacts a suitable law.
Active euthanasia, including the administration of lethal
compounds for the purpose of ending life, is still illegal in India.