Should parental affection be kept under check after a person gets married?
In a peculiar case, the Andhra Pradesh High Court recently answered the question somewhat in negative.
FACTS OF THE CASE
1. Ms. Sumakiran Mallena, a software professional at Intergraph Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Secunderabad, India.
2. Mr. Nagasayana Baki, a Telecom Engineer, Minneapolis, USA.
Both are wife and husband respectively.
3. Mr. B.G.K. Prasad, father of Mr. Nagasayana.
Suffering from kidney cirrhosis. Son, Shri Nagasayana flew from Minneapolis to donate a part of his liver. Hospital: Apollo Indraprastha Hospital, New Delhi.
Ms. Sumakiran filed a writ petition in Andhra Pradesh High Court under articles 21 and 226 of Indian Constitution, requesting for a stay against the donation of the liver.
Her contentions:
1. The health of her husband (Mr. Nagasayana) will be adversely affected by the donation.
2. "My life will be doomed in the land of disease and misery."
3. My "freedom to life" (article 21 of Indian Constitution guarantees this freedom to live) needs protection.
COURT'S DECISION
1. Petitioner's contention (wife's) that her husband's act (of donating a part of his liver to his father) violates her right under Article 21, is wholly beyond comprehension.
2. Family squabbles cannot be given Constitutional color.
3. Ethical issues are involved, than legal or Constitutional issues.
THIS BLOGGER'S OBSERVATIONS
1. Where is this country leading to?
2. A wife's anxiety about her husband's health is understandable.
3. Why a highly educated and employed daughter-in-law is unable to show any sympathy towards her father-in-law? I guess another reason: Most marriages today are performed treating MONEY, DOWRY, PROPERTY ETC. as the key issues. If the father-in-law has sold his son to the daughter-in-law for monetary considerations, there are only pecuniary relations. Where is the place for sympathy?
For those who want to show full details of the case pl. see the link:
http://www.deccan.com/home/homedetails.asp#HC%20gives%20lesson%20in%20life%20to%20wife
4 comments:
Does the Govt of India have any guide lines regards Donor safety: Informed Consent & Cooling off period for the donor.
Without any Ministry of health procedures/guidelines, will the donor not be taken for a ride by hospital authorities, if anything goes wrong to the donor .
How much can the govt/hospitals/doctors guarantee the donor and recipient?
Will the hospital not getaway saying the donor and the family signed for the surgery if anything goes wrong to donor or recipient?
How much percentage of the right lobe is taken from the donor>?
Post Operation What are the consequences?
Without any policy/guideline set by Ministry of Health dept, GOI,for Adult-Adult Live LIver Tranplsant ,the donor and the recipient will be at risk, if things go wrong, the private/corporate hospitals will wash their hands off saying the family memebrs had signed for the transplant. and if there are no checks on these so called Corporate/private Hospitals which (are/ahve been funded by state/central govts & granted various tax exemptions) charge lakhs of Rupees for the transplant .
Heard of the common medical joke,
Operation successful, patient dead.
In Adult-Adult Live Liver Transplant, Operation Successfull, Recipient Dies & Donor in Coma for 4 years.. The medical joke sounds better. This above has happened in a prominent Hosital in Hyd which says it is a pioneer for Liver TRansplants In India, the surgeons involved were British & was Recorded by BBC. Already donor deaths ave een reported in India.
http://www.ijme.in/133cv01.html
http://livertransplantrecordedbybbcglobalho.blogspot.com/2007/02/work-of-global-hospital-hyderabd-with.html
Thank you very much for your expert advice. Retrospectively, I feel that High Court ought to have appointed a Committee of technical (medical) experts and taken into consideration their advice also. High Court took only an ethical family obligations societal view. I too took only a societal view. I am sorry for my omission.
At the time of writing this post, I had a dilemma whether to post it under "IndianSociety.blogspot.com" or
LawJusticeYb.Blogspot.Com which is a legal blog. I posted it under Society blog because it has got something to do with family and society.
Guys I know this family personally and the father refused to accept the liver and eventually passed away a few weeks later. Husband and wife have not officially seperated but are not living together.
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