By NewsGram Staff-Writer

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a stay on the 10-August Rajasthan High Court ruling that equated the ancient Jain spiritual practice of Sallekhana with committing suicide. The Rajasthan HC ruling had allowed prosecution of the Sallekhana practitioners under Section 306 of Indian Penal Code.

Many from the Jain community had filed petitions in the Supreme Court against the HC ruling. On Monday, the SC bench comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy took up the petition for hearing and immediately ordered a stay on the HC ruling. The SC then issued a notice to the petitioners on whose pleas, the HC had passed its judgment, according to a Times of India report.

Sallekhana or Santhara is an ancient spiritual practice among the Jains, wherein people who were in old age or afflicted with fatal diseases, will take up spiritual austerities and fasting by slowly giving up the intake of food and water. The final stage of the practice consists of discarding the body through total giving up of food and water.

In 2006, Nikhil Soni had filed a PIL in Rajasthan HC challenging the legality of this practice.