India News | HC Appoints Comatose Man's Wife His Guardian

Mumbai, Aug 27 (PTI) The Bombay High Court on Thursday said that while there is no law at present on appointing guardians to patients lying in a comatose or vegetative state, the Hindu Vedic philosophy considers marriage as a union of two souls for life and hence partners can be appointed as guardians of each other.

A division bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Milind Jadhav appointed a woman a guardian to her 42-year-old husband, who is lying in a comatose/vegetative state since November 2018 after he suffered a cardiac arrest.

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The woman in her plea had sought to be appointed as the guardian for her husband to allow her to represent him in his companies and use his bank accounts.

The court in its order noted that at present there is no legislation in India relating to appointment of guardians to patients lying in comatose or vegetative state.

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However, as per Hindu Vedic philosophy, marriage is a sacrament that contemplates the union of two souls, it said.

"A wife is considered as a 'sahayogini' (partner), co-operating with her husband in all his activities as well as a 'sahakarmini', which means having an equal share in the actions of her husband. Together they are referred to as 'dampati' (couple)," the court said in its order.

"In Manusmriti, Manu had declared the wife as not just 'patni', but 'dharmapatni', meaning thereby that as per dharma she is under obligation and performs all duties of her husband," the court said.

It noted that partners in a marriage must weather the storms.

"In such circumstances, there can be no manner of doubt that conceptually the wife can be said to be best-suited to be the guardian of her husband, who is under a state of incapacity or disability on account of being in a comatose condition or vegetative state," the bench said.

The bench said, "Although in today's world, a stay case of foul play cannot be ruled out, it would be wrong in its part to take a jaundiced view of any claim made by a wife to guardianship of her husband who is lying in a vegetative state."

"Therefore, we see no impediment in accepting the claim of the petitioner to be the guardian of her husband," the court said.

The bench said that it is also essential that there should be some kind of monitoring of the functioning of the petitioner as guardian, albeit for a limited duration.

The court said the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority shall monitor the same every three months for a period of two years.

The plea stated that the petitioner has two sons, one of whom is a minor, and a dependent mother-in-law and with mounting medical bills and other household expenses, she is in a state of helplessness.

The petition stated that the petitioner had to create an air-conditioned nursing room having amenities and appoint a full-time nurse and part-time physio and speech therapists to treat her husband.

The petitioner said that since her husband is not in a position to use his intellect, converse and sign various documents, she had requested the concerned banks to allow her to put her signature in place of her husband, but the same was turned down.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)