THE JOURNEY OF LEGALIZED PASSIVE EUTHANASIA IN INDIA

India is a quasi-federal and democratic country. A country which has rigid and written constitution. The constitution has different features and one such feature is that it provides different fundamental rights to a person. One such important fundamental right is Article 21 which states right to life and personal liberty. The article may seem to be short but its interpreted in wider sense through judicial interpretation and pronouncements. Right to life also includes right to live with dignity as well as right to die with dignity and right to die with dignity welcomes the legalized passive euthanasia to all the Indian citizens. Therefore, this article will provide the remarkable journey of legalized passive euthanasia in India. It will critically analyse the concept of euthanasia and will provide the different kinds of euthanasia. It will provide the evolutional journey of euthanasia from the year 1986 to year 2018. The evolutional journey will be cited by different cases as to how the concept of euthanasia was curbed and shaped by the Indian legal system. It will also explain the inter-relation between euthanasia and right to die with dignity and how the courts in India has interpreted both. It will try to differentiate between euthanasia and suicide and how the Indian society and medical fraternity reacts to it. It will also explain the concept of living will and how it is used in medical ethics. Lastly, it will try to explain as why right to die is excluded from Article 21 and what is the reaction of Indians towards euthanasia whether they are in favour of it or are against of it.