Simplifying Advance Directives in India

In 2018, the Supreme Court of India authorized advance directives directing withholding and withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment. It held this was required under the constitution. But the government has not yet enacted implementing legislation.  

So, this week, the Supreme Court revised the guidelines, based on evidence that its original rules were too cumbersome and time-consuming.

Currently, the law states a living will should be:

1. Signed in the presence of two attesting witnesses
2. Affirmed by a judicial magistrate. 
3. In case the executor becomes terminally ill, a doctor overseeing treatment must constitute a board of three experts.
4. The experts must be from the fields of general medicine, neurology, psychiatry, oncology, cardiology, or nephrology with at least 20 years of experience in the medical field.  
5. The medical board will decide whether to certify whether to carry out the instructions in the living will. 
6. Once the hospital board grants permission, it asks the appropriate district collector for its sanction.
7. The collector will form a medical board comprising the chief district medical Officer and three expert doctors. 
8. If the board agrees with the hospital’s findings, the decision will be communicated to the appropriate judicial magistrate before the decision is implemented.