New Delhi: The Supreme Court appears all set to shed light on Monday on the complexities involved in laying down a law on mercy killing in the case of a nurse lying in a 'persistent vegetative state' in Mumbai's King Edward Memorial Hospital for over 37 years.
A bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra, while deciding a petition seeking the nurse's mercy killing, may either lay down rules for passive euthanasia to guard against abuse or reject the plea to remove the life support system of comatose Aruna Shanbaug (63), a rape victim, to end her life.
In the last hearing, the court was told that if there was unanimity among immediate relatives and doctors to put a comatose patient to permanent sleep, then there should be no difficulty.
The judges expressed apprehension that mercy killing may be open to abuse as relatives and doctors, for financial gains, may put a patient to sleep even though he or she may not be terminally ill.
The judges referred to the British practice of judicial declaration before a terminally ill patient can be put to sleep.