Comparative Study on the Passive Euthanasia Laws of India and the Netherlands

Passive euthanasia, that is, the withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining medical treatment from a patient with no reasonable prospect of recovery, lies at the meeting point of constitutional law, medical ethics and human rights. This paper undertakes a doctrinal comparative study of the passive euthanasia regimes of India and the Netherlands, two jurisdictions that arrived at legal toleration of hastened death through fundamentally different routes: India through progressive constitutional interpretation of the right to life under Article 21, and the Netherlands through dedicated statutory codification under the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act 2002. The study traces the Indian judiciary’s journey from P. Rathinam v Union of India through Gian Kaur v State of Punjab, Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug v Union of India, Common Cause v Union of India, the 2023 procedural modification and the first practical application of the framework in Harish Rana v Union of India in 2026. It then examines the Dutch due care model, its review committee architecture and its extension to minors. Applying a chapter-wise, criteria-based comparison covering legal basis, patient autonomy, advance directives, decision-making authority, procedural safeguards, judicial oversight and protection of vulnerable persons, the paper finds that India’s framework remains judicially engineered, procedurally cautious and confined strictly to passive euthanasia, while the Dutch model is legislatively sanctioned, physician-centred and considerably more expansive in substantive scope. The study concludes that wholesale transplantation of the Dutch model into India is neither constitutionally nor socio-economically feasible, but that India can selectively adopt Dutch procedural safeguards, particularly time-bound medical board review, standardised due care documentation and closer integration of palliative care, to strengthen the practical efficacy of its own dignity-centred jurisprudence without altering its present substantive scope.