With the supreme court on Monday rejecting a plea to allow active euthanasia (mercy killing) to Aruna Shanbaugh, a victim of sexual assault, and setting out guidelines for passive euthanasia, the government may refer the matter to the law commission to seek its views on the complex subject.

Law ministry sources said here that as the apex court has allowed passive euthanasia of withdrawing life support to patients in permanently vegetative state but rejected active euthanasia of ending life through administration of lethal substances, government may ask the law commission to study the issue and come out with a report.

Though the law commission, in a report submitted in 2006, had favoured mercy killing for terminally ill patients, the law ministry thinks a fresh look by the panel will help clarify the issue after Monday's order by the SC asking the government to bring a law on euthanasia.

The law commission reports are not binding on the government but they help various ministries firm up their views on complex legal issues such as this one.

The apex court while framing the guidelines for passive euthanasia said it would now become the law of the land until Parliament enacts a suitable legislation to deal with the issue.

The two-member bench also asked Parliament to delete Section 309 IPC (attempt to suicide) as it has become "anachronistic though it has become constitutionally valid."

In its report submitted to the government in 2008, the law commission too had recomended that "the offence of attempt to commit suicide under section 309 needs to be ommitted from the Indian Penal Code."

While the issue of euthanasia is the subject of the health ministry, changes in the provisions of the IPC are dealt with by the ministry of home affairs.

The apex court said though there is no statutory provision for withdrawing life support system from a person in permanently vegetative state, it was of the view that "passive euthanasia" could be permissible in certain cases for which it laid down guidelines and cast the responsibility on high courts to take decisions on pleas for mercy killings.

The SC bench agreed with senior counsel T R Andhyarujina, who assisted the court in the matter, that passive euthanasia should be permitted in India in certain situations.

Earlier on Monday, government said a serious debate was needed on the issue of euthanasia as there were no laws at present on it in the country.

"...They (supreme court) are right that without a law, you cannot resort to this kind of a decision with a judicial order," law minister M Veerappa Moily said here.

Moily said the Right to Life is a right vested with a person. "Therefore, there is a need for a serious debate on the matter. It has to be examined, it has to be debated upon," he said.