Harish Rana v Union of India
Submissions before the Supreme Court of India
Vidhi was part of the legal team representing Harish Rana and his parents. A miscellaneous application by Advocate on Record Rashmi Nandakumar and written submissions were made before the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Harish Rana v Union of India Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 18225 of 2024, a case where the withdrawal of clinically assisted hydration and nutrition was in debate. Harish Rana was in a persistent vegetative state for over a decade and was being fed through a Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastronomy (PEG) tube (a feeding tube inserted through the abdomen into the stomach that provides long-term nutrition, fluids, and medication when eating is impossible).
The case marks the first time the judiciary has applied the principles of withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment as held in Common Cause v Union of India. The judgment marks an important milestone in India’s journey on the fundamental right to die with dignity.
With this judgment, the country has long-awaited clarity to families facing some of the hardest decisions. Vidhi is glad to have been a part of the legal team representing Harish Rana and his family, and to assist the Supreme Court in laying down the position on the issue and deliberating on what India needs to make this right accessible to all.
The Supreme Court held the following:
- Clinically Assisted Nutrition and Hydration is a medical treatment that can be withheld or withdrawn, even when administered in a home setting by an informed layperson.
- Withholding and withdrawal of medical treatment, the term preferred over ‘passive euthanasia’, means respecting the dignity of the patient and letting the natural course of death happen.
- Passive euthanasia is an obsolete and incorrect term, and should not be used either in common usage or legal writing and discussions. It unnecessarily confuses the legal position on the issue as the debate cannot be neatly divided into ‘acts’ and ‘omissions’.
- One is not abandoning the patient by withdrawing or withholding medical treatment. Palliative and end-of-life care must continue for these patients.
- The process is only applicable for persons in a persistent vegetative state or terminal illness or like conditions. It is operationalised when (i) the patient loses decision-making capacity and (ii) further treatment is futile.
- The Parliament is urged to enact a law guiding the process in India.
We thank Advocate-on-record (AOR) Rashmi Nandakumar, Adv. Anindita Mitra, Adv. Yashmita Pandey, Adv. Manish Jain
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About the Authors
Dr. Dhvani Mehta {B.L.S. LL.B. (University of Mumbai); BCL, D.Phil (Oxon)} is a Co-Founder at Vidhi and Lead, Health. She has worked specifically on research projects on environmental clearances, the National Green Tribunal, organ transplant laws, end of life care, and pharmaceutical and medical device regulation. She has appeared in the Supreme Court of India in petitions filed by Vidhi on advance medical directives and discrimination against persons affected by leprosy. She has authored chapters on the implementation of environmental judgments and healthcare corruption in India. Dhvani read for a doctoral degree at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where she was Chairperson of Oxford Pro Bono Publico and an editor of the Oxford Human Rights Hub blog. Her doctoral thesis explores the idea of an environmental rule of law in India and was cited by the Supreme Court of India.
Rituparna is a Research Fellow at Vidhi and works in the area of health. Her interests include public health, data protection and privacy, and mental health. Prior to joining Vidhi, she was engaged as a Policy Research Associate under Mr. Kashish Aneja, a practicing advocate & consultant with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Washington D.C., where she worked extensively on topics including One Health, global regulation of e-cigarettes, and misleading advertisements related to high fat, sugar and sodium (HFSS) foods and beverages. Rituparna graduated from the National Law University Odisha (NLUO) in 2022 with a B.A., LL.B. (Hons.), and received a Merit Gold Medal in the subject of Personal Law.
Shivani Mody is a Research Fellow with the Health team. Prior to joining Vidhi, she worked as a Law Researcher under Hon'ble Mr. Justice Prateek Jalan at the Delhi High Court where she focused on cases involving arbitration law as well as statutory writs. She graduated from Jindal Global Law School with a B.A. LL.B. in 2023. As a law student, she gained experience interning with various research and advocacy organizations, such as Vidhi, the Alternative Law Forum, and the Centre for Justice, Law and Society, where she examined how legal frameworks shape and influence societal issues.
