Harish Rana, first person to be allowed withdrawal of medical treatment, dies in AIIMS

Days after the Supreme Court granted withdrawal of medical treatment in his case, affirming “the right to die with dignity”, 31-year-old Harish Rana died at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, on Tuesday (March 24, 2026) after more than 13 years in coma, sources said.  

Since August 2013, Mr. Rana had been on life support after he fell from a building and sustained severe head injuries when he was a B. Tech student at Panjab University. 

He was shifted from his Ghaziabad home to the palliative care unit at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital at AIIMS on March 14, three days after the apex court passed the landmark judgement for Harish. 

For the past 13 years, he had been on artificial nutrition and occasional oxygen support. Harish’s nutritional support was gradually withdrawn after he was admitted to the hospital, the sources said on Tuesday (March 24). He is survived by his parents, Ashok and Nirmala Rana. 

Harish’s family had said after the apex court judgment that the withdrawal of artificial life support would not bring any personal benefit to the family, but in the larger public interest, the decision could help others facing similar situations. 

His father had said the move would restore Harish’s dignity after years of irreversible suffering. The court had directed AIIMS-Delhi to ensure that life support is withdrawn with a tailored plan so that dignity is maintained. 

A specialised medical team headed by Dr. Seema Mishra, professor and head of the department of anaesthesia and palliative medicine, was constituted to implement the process, the first ever in India. 

The team comprised doctors from departments of neurosurgery, onco-anaesthesia and palliative medicine, and psychiatry. The Supreme Court, in its March 11 judgment, allowed withdrawal of medical treatment for a person for the first time in the country. 

Ruling on the long-discussed emotive issue, a Bench of Justices J. B. Pardiwala and K. V. Viswanathan asked the Union Government to consider bringing comprehensive legislation on the issue. 

The top court noted that Rana survived only through clinically administered nutrition via ‘percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy’ tubes, and medical boards had unanimously concluded that continuation of treatment merely prolonged biological existence without any possibility of recovery. 

When primary and secondary boards have certified withdrawal of life support, there is no need for judicial intervention, the apex court said. 

It also asked the Union of India to ensure that chief medical officers in all districts maintain a panel of registered medical practitioners for nomination to secondary medical boards. 

Journalist-activist Pinki Virani, who filed a petition for “euthanasia” to Aruna Shanbaug in 2011, thanked the doctors and nurses at AIIMS, and urged that one should let their family members know “if they would want to exercise this right for themselves”. 

The top court had rejected Ms. Virani’s plea on behalf of Shanbaug, who remained bedridden in a vegetative state in a Mumbai hospital since a brutal sexual assault in November 1973. 

(With agency inputs)