Payal Tadvi suicide: Two accused doctors file for discharge from case

Two of the three doctors, accused of abetting the suicide of Dr Payal Tadvi, on Thursday filed pleas before Mumbai sessions court seeking discharge from the case

Two of the three doctors, accused of abetting the suicide of Dr Payal Tadvi, on Thursday filed pleas before Mumbai sessions court seeking discharge from the case.

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Counsel for the third accused, Dr Hema Ahuja, informed Additional Sessions judge Deepak L Bhagwat that she too would file for discharge soon.

The court posted the matter for hearing on April 18, with direction to special prosecutor Pradeep Gharat to reply to the discharge pleas filed by Dr Bhakti Mehare and Dr Ankita Khandelwal.

Tadvi, a second-year postgraduate student of Topiwala National Medical College attached to BYL Nair Hospital died by suicide on May 22, 2019, in her hostel room on the hospital premises.

In her suicide note, she had blamed the three seniors for harassing her over her caste and the fact that she had secured admission for the postgraduate course through quota earmarked for the scheduled tribes.

Ahuja, Mehare and Khandelwal were arrested on May 29, 2019, for allegedly making casteist slurs and driving Tadvi to end her life. The three have been booked under sections 306 (abetment to suicide) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code and section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Dr Mehare, in her plea filed through advocate Prakash L Shetty, contended, “Even if the entire allegations in the chargesheet were accepted as true and even if the witnesses were not controverted in their cross-examinations, no prima facie case was made out against her for the offences mentioned in the chargesheet.”

“The chargesheet does not show that the applicant did any act to abet the suicide of the deceased or cause disappearance of any evidence,” the plea said, adding the WhatsApp chats between the deceased and the complainant showed that the accused did not know that the deceased belonged to a scheduled tribe.

Dr Khandelwal, who filed her discharge plea through advocate Vaibhav Jagtap, said, “There is no material to disclose that the applicant had intentionally aided the act of suicide by the deceased. The applicant has not instigated any person, or engaged with others in any conspiracy, or intentionally aided, by any act or illegal omission, so as to drive the deceased to end her life. There is no mens rea to commit an offence.”

There was no material to indicate that she took an active part in aiding or abetting the suicide, or did humiliate the deceased, her plea said. “On the other hand, there is ample evidence to disclose that the deceased was under stress and unable to cope with the pressure of her work, which ultimately led her to die by suicide.”

It added that perusal of the statements of some crucial witnesses – doctors from BYL Nair Hospital – revealed that the deceased was under stress and unable to cope with the workload, which drove her to end her life and none of them had said anything about the alleged ill treatment of the deceased.