Suicide of former MP: SC upholds HC order quashing abetment FIR

Mohan Delkar was a prominent tribal leader and seven-time MP from the Dadra and Nagar Haveli constituency. He died by suicide in a south Mumbai hotel on February 21, 2021

MUMBAI: The Supreme Court has upheld the Bombay High Court order striking down the first information report (FIR) registered at Marine Drive police station against Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Diu and Daman administrator Prafulla Patel, and eight others including senior police officers of the union territory (UT) for abetting suicide of former parliamentarian Mohan Delkar.

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“We have found the suicide note to be suspect and we are not convinced that there is any modicum of material in the case to find abetment of suicide. The High Court was not in error when it quashed the FIR,” the bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and justice K Vinod Chandran said while dismissing an appeal filed by Abhinav Delkar, son of the deceased Member of Parliament (MP).

His father, a prominent tribal leader and seven-time MP from the Dadra and Nagar Haveli constituency, died by suicide in a south Mumbai hotel on February 21, 2021, when he was visiting the city in connection with a court matter. On March 9, the Marine Drive police registered an FIR at the instance of the deceased MP’s son, Abhinav, booking nine people for abetting his suicide. Apart from Patel, the accused included law secretary Rohit Yadav, Daman superintendent of police Sharad Darade, sub-divisional police officer Manasvi Jain, Dadra and Nagar Haveli collector Sandeep Kumar Singh, deputy collector Apurva Sharma, police inspector Manoj Patel, talathi Dilip Patel, and local businessman Fatehsingh Chauhan.

In his police statement, Abhinav alleged that acting at the behest of Patel, the union territory administration continuously harassed and ill-treated his father with an intention to take over his college and prevent him from contesting the ensuing general elections.

Soon thereafter, nine of the accused approached the high court for quashing the FIR. On September 8, 2022, the high court struck down the FIR, observing that even if the allegations made in the police complaint were true, they did not constitute any offence.

Abhinav subsequently challenged the high court order before the apex court, which dismissed his appeals on Monday, observing that the manner in which the suicide note was introduced in the case was doubtful.

The apex court said that while Delkar’s death came to light on the morning of February 22, 2021, and the Marine Drive police informed his son about it on March 1, the FIR was registered only eight days later, on March 9. Moreover, Delkar had never any made direct allegations against Patel and the other individuals mentioned in his suicide note, though he had raised the issues faced by him before the Lok Sabha speaker and the Parliamentary committee of privileges, which had initiated necessary action.

The Supreme Court also took into consideration that Delkar was not an ordinary person who would succumb to pressures and purported public humiliation by the UT administration.

“He rose up in the political front presumably by his grit and determination, especially having been elected to the Lok Sabha seven times, losing only once in three decades, that too as an independent candidate,” the judges said.

The court also noted that there was no live-link between the death of the seven-term MP and the instances alleged in the suicide note and police statements.

“Despite our anxious reading and re-reading, the complaints made, the statements recorded, the suicide note, over which there is a cloud, and the subsequent conduct of the police regarding the delay in registering a crime and the casual statements made in the FIR, persuade us to negate the contention that the allegations levelled were the direct causation of the death,” the court said, upholding the high court order.