THE RIGHT TO DIE WITH DIGNITY: EXAMINING BODILY AUTONOMY, THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL VALIDITY OF PASSIVE EUTHANASIA IN POST-PUTTASWAMY INDIA

The constitutional right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950 has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to encompass a life lived with dignity, meaning, and personal autonomy. The question of whether this guarantee extends to the manner of one's death, specifically through the withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment, has occupied the Indian judiciary for several decades and has acquired renewed constitutional force following the nine-judge Constitution Bench's landmark ruling in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), which unanimously recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution. The five-judge Constitution Bench's ruling in Common Cause v. Union of India (2018) constitutes the most authoritative judicial articulation of the right to die with dignity in Indian law, validating passive euthanasia and advance medical directives as exercises of the fundamental rights to life, privacy, and bodily autonomy. This paper undertakes a comprehensive evaluation of the constitutional foundations, philosophical underpinnings, and practical limitations of this framework. It examines the doctrinal evolution from P. Rathinam to Gian Kaur to Common Cause, analyses the privacy jurisprudence of Puttaswamy and its implications for end-of-life decision-making, and engages with comparative constitutional frameworks from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The paper argues that while the Common Cause framework represents a significant constitutional advance, it falls short in several respects: the advance directive regime is procedurally burdensome, Parliament has not enacted the requisite implementing legislation, and the active-passive euthanasia distinction merits critical re-examination. The paper concludes by identifying the institutional and legislative reforms needed to give substantive content to the right to die with dignity in post-Puttaswamy India.