Right to die;
N.K.Assumi 
(Querist) 06 September 2008
This query is : Resolved
Apart from right to life, should we also not have right to die and that section 309 of the IPC scraped? Please comment:
Rajesh Kumar
(Expert) 06 September 2008
Under natural law right to die has always been recognised as a right inherent in right to life. In fact, in the year 1994, Supreme Court specifically said that right to life includes right not to live. After sometime that judgment was overruled.
Denial of right to die, and existence of Section 309 in the statute book reflects attitude of society to own and control individual life- the society want to express that individual life is not for individuals, but for the society and hence individual has no right to take his own life. At the same the society wants to keep right to kill individual in social interest (capital punishment).
Law has always been a mode to balance social and individual interest. Sometimes social interest take primacy, sometimes individual interest takes primacy. Under the present circumsatnces, social interest has primacy. However, individual right advocacy is catching up and soon this right will be granted.
N.K.Assumi
(Querist) 06 September 2008
Tnx Rajesh, could you kindly refer to me the SC Case of 1994?
KamalNayanSaxena
(Expert) 07 September 2008
In Rathinam/Nagbhusan Patnaik v. Union of India" 1994 AIR SCW 1764, it was held by the Supreme Court that S. 309 of the Penal Code deserves to be effaced from the statute book to humanise our penal laws. It is a cruel and irrational provision, and it may result in punishing a person again (doubly) who has suffered agony and would be undergoing ignominy because of his failure to commit suicide. Then an act of suicide cannot be said to be against religion, morality or public policy, and an act of attempted suicide has no baneful effect on society. Further, suicide or attempt to commit it causes no harm to others, because of which State's interference with the personal liberty of the concerned persons is not called for. Thus S. 309 violates Art. 21, and so, it is void.
This Judgment was overrued in 1996.
The Supreme Court sought to do through this judgment an attempt to "search for the social dynamics of criminal law, the functional theory of sentencing and the therapeutic reach of punitive arts, to catch up with social sciences relevant too criminal justice and to link up prison jurisprudence with constitutional roots.
To give meaning and content to the word 'life' in Art. 21, it has to be construed as life with human dignity. Any aspect of life which makes it dignified may be read into it but not that which extinguishes it and is, therefore, inconsistent with the continued existence of life resulting in effacing the right itself. The 'right to die', if any, is inherently inconsistent with the 'right to life' as is 'death' with 'life'. Protagonism of euthanasia on the view that existence in Persistent vegetative state (PVS) is not a benefit to the patient of a terminal illness being unrelated to the principle of 'sanctity of life' or the 'right to live with dignity' is of no assistance to determine the scope of Art. 21 for deciding whether the guarantee of 'right to life' therein includes the 'right to die'. The 'right to life' including the right to live with human dignity would mean the existence of such a right up to the end of natural life. This also includes the right to a dignified life up to the point of death including a dignified procedure of death. In other words, this may include the right of a dying man to also die with dignity when his life is ebbing out. But the 'right to die' with dignity at the end of life is not to be confused or equated with the 'right to die' an unnatural death curtailing the natural span of life. The plea to support the view of permitting termination of life in cases of a dying man, who is, terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state to reduce the period of suffering during the process of certain natural death is not available to interpret Art. 21 to include therein the right to curtail the natural span of life.
The debate on the desirability of retaining a penal provision of punishing attempted suicide, including the recommendation for its deletion by the Law Commission are not sufficient to indicate that the provision is unconstitutional being violative of Art. 14. Even if those facts over weigh, the severity of the provision is mitigated by the wide discretion in the matter of sentencing since there is no requirement of awarding any minimum sentence and the sentence of imprisonment is not even compulsory. There is also no minimum fine prescribed as sentence, which alone may be the punishment awarded on conviction under S. 309, I.P.C.
A question may arise, in the context of a dying man, who is, terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state that he may be permitted to terminate it by a premature extinction of his life in those circumstances. This category of cases may fall within the ambit of the 'right to die' with dignity as a part of right to live with dignity, when death due to termination of natural life is certain and imminent and the process of natural death has commenced. These are not cases of extinguishing life but only of accelerating conclusion of the
G. ARAVINTHAN
(Expert) 07 September 2008
Right to die is against law..
ARVIND JAIN
(Expert) 25 September 2008
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO DIE- NO PROBLEM,BUT IF YOU YOU COULD NOT-IT IS A PROBLEM.ATTEMPT IS AN OFFENCE. S.C TRIED TO GIVE US RIGHT TO DIE BUT COULD NOT.OVERRULED ITS OWN JUDGMENT.
