
The News Minute | July 16, 2014 | 11.35 am ISTThe Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a notice to all states and Union Territories asking them for their views on whether terminally ill people should be allowed to make a will that would permit their life support to be withdrawn if they ever descended to a vegetative state with no hopes of recovery. The states will have to give a reply to the notice within eight weeks. The Union Government however said that passive euthanasia is a form of suicide and cannot be allowed. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, representing the centre, told the court that the matter came under the legislature and that the judiciary should not take it up, states a report in NDTV. It should thus be discussed in the parliament, and not the judiciary. (http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/supreme-court-issues-notices-to-states... )The notice was issued following a petition filed by an NGO seeking legalization of voluntary passive euthanasia. A five-judge bench comprising justices J S Khehar, J Chelameswar, A K Sikri, and R F Nariman, issued the notice after hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by NGO Common Cause, which is seeking the right to die with dignity.Passive euthanasia includes withdrawing life-support systems or stopping medications for patients in a vegetative state.