SC reserves verdict on mercy killing plea

Aruna Shanbaug has been in coma for the last 37 yers after being raped on November 27, 1973

SC reserves verdict on mercy killing plea

Aruna Shanbaug has been in coma for the last 37 yers after being raped on November 27, 1973

The wait isn't over yet. Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved the verdict on a petition seeking mercy killing for Aruna Shanbaug, a former nurse who has been lying in a vegetative state in a Mumbai hospital bed for the last 37 years following sexual assault by a sweeper.

After examining Aruna Shanbaug

On behalf of the hospital, advocate Ballabh Sisodia opposed the plea filed by author and social activist Pinky Virani and said the doctors and nurses, who are taking 'dedicated care' of Aruna for the past 37 years, also don't want euthanasia for her.

Big decision:u00a0A panel of three doctors Dr JV Divatia, Dr Roop Gurshani
and Dr Nilesh Shah submitted a report to the apex court.

Attorney General GE Vahanvati too opposed the petition saying there is 'no provision either under the statute or the constitution to permit euthanasia'. A panel of doctors appointed by the apex court also scrutinised the case to explain the expert report after examining Aruna and present their views on euthanasia.

A Supreme Court bench of justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra reserved the verdict after hearing arguments by various parties. Katju and Misra had appointed Dr JV Divatia, Dr Roop Gurshani and Dr Nilesh Shah to examine Aruna and submit a report.

The doctors had duly submitted the report on February 17, along with a CD. The apex court Bench, after perusing the report, had asked the doctors to appear in the court to answer questions, explain the report and give their views on euthanasia. Virani, a friend of Aruna from Mumbai, had approached the court, seeking the court's directive to stop Aruna's feeding as her continued vegetative existence is a violation to her right to live in dignity.

Virani has also pointed that there was no chance of Aruna's condition improving. Doctors who examined Aruna have also noted that the nurse meets almost all criteria of being in persistent vegetative state. However, nurses at King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital, where Aruna worked and has been admitted since the 1973 incident, feel that Aruna should be allowed to live and are willing to take care of her till she meets her normal death.

Walmiki, who served a term of seven years of imprisonment for attempt to murder, had said that he had assaulted Aruna after she pulled him up few times for stealing food meant for hospital animals.The sweeper died recently in Delhi of AIDS.

The nightmare
In 1973, while she was working at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai she was assaulted by a Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, a ward boy at the hospital. Walmiki was motivated partly by resentment for being ordered about and castigated by Shanbaug. On the night of 27 November 1973 he attacked her while she was changing clothes in the hospital basement for leaving her shift. He choked her with a dog chain and sodomised her. The asphyxiation during the course of the assault cut off oxygen supply to her brain resulting in brain stem contusion injury and cervical cord injury as well as leaving her cortically blind.