Indian man whose life support was removed after court go-ahead dies
Rana familyAn Indian man whose life support was removed after the Supreme Court accepted his parents' plea to do so has died.
Harish Rana's case is the first instance of court-approved passive euthanasia - the act of withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatment - in India.
Rana, 31, died on Tuesday at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Aiims) hospital in Delhi, where he had been receiving palliative care after his life support was withdrawn.
Rana had been in a comatose state since 2013, when he suffered serious head injuries after falling from a fourth-floor balcony. He was an engineering student at the time.
Before his accident, Rana hadn't made a will specifying directives for his treatment if he lost his ability to make decisions.
Also called a 'living will', this legal document allows anyone over 18 years to choose the medical care they would like to receive if they develop a terminal illness or condition with no hope of recovery.
In 2018, the Supreme Court legalised passive euthanasia by allowing people to draw up living wills. Active euthanasia - any act that intentionally helps a person kill themselves - is illegal in India.
But since Rana didn't have a living will and could not consent to being taken off life support as he was in a coma, his parents approached courts to allow their son's life-sustaining treatment to be withdrawn.
They have previously said in media interviews that they had exhausted all their savings caring for their son and were also worried about what would happen to him after they died.
Rana's parents first approached the Delhi High Court in 2024, seeking passive euthanasia for their son, but their plea was rejected on the grounds that Rana hadn't been placed on life-support machines at the time and was hence, as the court noted, "able to sustain himself without any external aid".
They then went to the Supreme Court, which also declined their plea.
In 2025, they approached the Supreme Court again, saying that their son's condition had deteriorated and that he was being kept alive "artificially" through life support machines.
The Supreme Court agreed to consider their case after two medical boards assessed Rana's condition.
According to the law governing living wills in India, two medical boards must certify that a patient meets the criteria for their life support to be withdrawn.
Both boards said that Rana had a negligible chance of recovering and living a normal life, and that he required external support for feeding, bladder and bowel movements. The boards also noted that he had permanent brain damage and had suffered huge bed sores.
On 11 March, the Supreme Court noted that Rana was not responding to treatment and asked the medical boards to "exercise [their] clinical judgement" in the matter.
He was then moved from his house to the palliative care unit at Aiims, where he died.
After Rana's death, the family's lawyer told the Indian Express newspaper that the case would set a precedent in India.
"There are many such patients across the country," he said.
