Supreme Court's Aruna Shanbhag judgment

Its good to be back to the blog. In my absence, I noticed that lots of people accessed a post I had put out on Aruna Shanbhag in 2009 when Pinki Virani's petition in the Supreme Court was supposed to be heard. I was away at a fellowship workshop when the apex court finally gave its judgement in the case on Mar 7, 2011 after asking a panel of doctors to medically examine Aruna again.

The Supreme Court rejected the euthanasia plea, but the judgement is clearly a landmark one in Indian judicial history. Hence, I thought it was important to put the judgment online.

The 110-page judgement by Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra starts with a couplet from Mirza Ghalib:

Marte hain arzoo mein marne ki
Maut aati hain par nahi aati...

Unfortunately, when I give a link to the specific page of the judgement on the Supreme Court website, it is generating an error. Therefore, I request that readers click on this Supreme Court Information System and click on Search by Date of Judgement link on the left nav bar. Change the dates in both the drop down menus to Mar 7, 2011, and you will see the judgement in Aruna Shanbhag case.

Thanks and apologies

Aruna Shanbhag

It has been 36 years since Aruna Shanbhag, a young KEM Hospital staff nurse, was raped and strangulated with a dog chain by a sweeper, Sohanlal Walmiki, and has been lying brain dead at the KEM Hospital.

On a plea from journalist and author Pinki Virani, the Supreme Court today issued notices to the KEM Hospital, the BMC, the Maharashtra Government and the Centre asking them to provide information about her condition.

Arun was 25 years old when the incident changed her life. She was in love with a doctor and was slated to marry him soon. She is now 61. She can't speak, hear, see or move. She is not on life support nor is she intravenously fed. Mashed food is put into her mouth by KEM nurses, and it gets swallowed. That has been keeping her alive all these years. Her relatives have stopped visiting the hospital The KEM nurses take care of her to ensure that she doesn't get bed sores. The doctors have not conducted any medical tests on her either for last 15 years.

Sohanlal Walmiki was convicted for seven years, (and that too not for sexual assault or unnatural sex), and walked a free man.

With Supreme Court taking cognisance of her case, will Aruna's Story finally have an end?
Should it end?