Aruna Shanbaug case

In June 2020, the Ullu web series named "KASAK" was released, which is loosely based on this case. The role of Sheetal, Shanbaug's stand-in, is portrayed by Ihana Dhillon.

Shanbaug died of pneumonia on 18 May 2015, after being in a persistent vegetative state for nearly 42 years.

A few days before her death, Shanbaug was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was moved to the medical intensive care unit (MICU) of the hospital and put on a ventilator. She died the morning of 18 May 2015. Her funeral was performed by the hospital nurses and other staff members.

On 25 February 2014, while hearing a PIL filed by NGO Common Cause, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India said that the prior opinion in the Aruna Shanubaug case was based on a wrong interpretation of the Constitution Bench's opinion in Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab. The court also determined that the opinion was internally inconsistent because although it held that euthanasia can be allowed only by an act of the legislature, it then proceeded to judicially establish euthanasia guidelines. The court referred the issue to a larger Constitution Bench for resolution, writing:

Anumol played Aruna in the 2014 Malayalam film Maram Peyyumbol.

In 1973, while working as a junior nurse at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by a ward boy, Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, and remained in a vegetative state following the assault. On 24 January 2011, after Shanbaug had been in this state for 37 years, the Supreme Court of India responded to a plea for euthanasia filed by journalist Pinki Virani, setting up a medical panel to examine her. The court rejected the petition on 7 March 2011. However, in its landmark opinion, it allowed passive euthanasia in India.

On 7 March 2011, the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgement, issued a set of broad guidelines legalizing passive euthanasia in India. These guidelines for passive euthanasia—i.e. the decision to withdraw treatment, nutrition, or water—establish that the decision to discontinue life support must be taken by parents, spouse, or other close relatives, or in the absence of them, by a "next friend". The decision also requires court approval.

On 17 December 2010, the Supreme Court, while admitting the plea to end the life made by activist-journalist Pinki Virani, sought a report on Shanbaug's medical condition from the hospital in Mumbai and the government of Maharashtra. On 24 January 2011, a three-member medical panel was established under the Supreme Court's directive. After examining Shanbaug, the panel concluded that she met "most of the criteria of being in a permanent vegetative state".

A non-fiction book titled Aruna's Story was written about the case by Pinki Virani in 1998. Duttakumar Desai wrote the Marathi play Katha Arunachi in 1994–95, which was performed at college level and subsequently staged by Vinay Apte in 2002.

A Gujarati fiction novel, Jad Chetan, was written by popular novelist Harkisan Mehta in 1985 based on Aruna Shanbaug's case.

Sohanlal was caught and convicted of assault and robbery, and he served two concurrent seven-year sentences, being released in 1980. He was not convicted of rape, sexual molestation, or unnatural sexual offense, the last of which could have been punished with life imprisonment.

Shortly after Shanbaug's death was announced, however, Sohanlal was tracked down by Mumbai-based journalist Dnyanesh Chavan from Marathi daily Sakal to his father-in-law's village of Parpa in western Uttar Pradesh. He was found to be still living, married with a family, and working as a labourer and cleaner in a power station. After his release from prison, he returned to his ancestral village of Dadupur in western Uttar Pradesh before moving to Parpa in the late 1980s.

Following the attack, nurses in Mumbai went on strike demanding improved conditions for Shanbaug and better working conditions for themselves. In the 1980s, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (BMC) made two attempts to move Shanbaug outside the KEM Hospital to free the bed she had been occupying for seven years. KEM nurses launched a protest, and the BMC abandoned the plan.

On the night of 27 November 1973, the then 25-year-old Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, a sweeper on contract at the King Edward Memorial Hospital. Sohanlal attacked her while she was changing clothes in the hospital basement. He choked her with a dog chain and raped her. This cut off oxygen to her brain, resulting in a brain stem contusion, cervical cord injury, and cortical blindness. She was discovered at 7:45 am the following morning by a cleaner.

Shanbaug remained in a vegetative state from 1973 until her death in 2015.

Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug (1 June 1948 – 18 May 2015), was an Indian nurse who was at the centre of attention in a court case on euthanasia after spending nearly 42 years in a vegetative state as a result of sexual assault.

Aruna Shanbaug was born in a Kannada brahmin family 1948 in Haldipur, Uttar Kannada, Karnataka. She worked as a nurse at the King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEM) in Mumbai. At the time of the attack, she was engaged to a doctor employed at the same hospital.