If a man or a woman commits suicide due to heart break, his partner cannot be held responsible for the death, stressed the Chhattisgarh High Court, which recently quashed the order of framing ‘abetment to suicide’ charges against a girl and her brothers in a case of suicide of her former boyfriend.
The bench of Justice Parth Prateem Sahu said that “if a lover commits suicide (due to heart break), if a student commits suicide because of his poor performance in the exam, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide”.
“For the wrong decision taken by a man of weak or frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide,” it added.
The court was dealing with a writ petition moved by the girl and her two brothers against the order passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Dongergarh, District Rajnandgaon.
The judge below had framed charges under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 against the girl and under Section 306/34 against her brothers.
On January 28, 2023, the police received an intimation regarding the unnatural death of the man. In the course of inquiry, a suicide note left behind by him was found in which allegations were made against the girl and her brothers.
The suicide note said the man and the woman were in a relationship for about seven years, and then the latter broke up with him and found someone else. The letter further mentioned that her brothers were threatening the man for life and due to which he had committed suicide by hanging.
The counsel for the accused persons argued that there was no material on record, which prima facie established that they, by doing any positive act, had instigated, aided or provoked the man to commit suicide.
The counsel put forth the cases of Swamy Prahladdas v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1995), SC Cheema vs. Vijay Kumar Mahajan (2010) and a few other instances to buttress his submissions.
Also, the plea was opposed by the counsel for the government who submitted that the accused were specifically named in the suicide note and the deceased had killed himself only being fed up with the betrayal and threats.
The high court referred to Section 107 of IPC, which defines abetment, and Section 306 of IPC, which provides punishment for abetment to suicide, and noted that to constitute abetment within its meaning under Section 107 read with Section 306 of IPC, there should be “active suggestion, instigation or encouragement on the part of the accused”. “Even harassment simpliciter cannot constitute abetment within its meaning under the law,” it stressed.
The court pointed out that the only incriminating evidence against the accused was the suicide note, which contained only allegations that do not suggest that the accused had instigated or harassed or tortured the deceased.
“Prima facie, it appears from the suicide note that the deceased was deeply in love with the applicant so much so that he could not tolerate betrayal in love by the applicant, her decision to marry with some other boy. Therefore, out of frustration in love, he committed suicide, blaming the applicant,” the court noted.
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