New Delhi: A person cannot be permitted to die according to Indian laws, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday while hearing the petition of a former nurse who has been in coma for 36 years after being raped.
The court asked the Central and Maharashtra governments to reply to a petition moved on behalf of Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug, 59, who has been in a vegetative state in Mumbai's KEM hospital after being sexually assaulted by a sweeper in 1973.
"Under the law of the country, we cannot allow a person to die," a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices A K Ganguly and B S Chauhan said about the petition which seeks that Shanbaug not be fed.
The court agreed to issue a notice to the governments after lawyer Shekhar Nafde explained the petition didn’t appeal for "euthanasia" but was a plea moved by Shanbaug’s friend Pinki Virani.
"This is no human right. Her life is worse than animal existence," the advocate said referring to Shanbaug.
He said Shanbaug, who had joined as a nurse in the KEM hospital in 1966, is unconscious and has been lying on bed since 1973.
The petition sought a direction for the state government and Municipal Corporation of Brihan Mumbai to carry out tests to ascertain Shanbaug’s medical condition.
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