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Practical approach key in suicide abetment cases: SC

ByAbraham Thomas, New Delhi
Jan 18, 2025 12:30 AM IST

The court called for a practical approach as it noticed a casual approach by police and courts to readily resort to punishing people under this offence

The Supreme Court on Friday called for a practical approach in dealing with cases of abetment to suicide as it noticed a casual approach by police and courts to readily resort to punishing people under this offence without considering the day-to-day realities of life.

The court made the comments while discharging a Madhya Pradesh resident who was charged under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which punishes abetment to suicide with a maximum sentence of 10 years (HT Photo)
The court made the comments while discharging a Madhya Pradesh resident who was charged under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which punishes abetment to suicide with a maximum sentence of 10 years (HT Photo)

The court made the comments while discharging a Madhya Pradesh resident who was charged under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which punishes abetment to suicide with a maximum sentence of 10 years. The petitioner Mahendra Awase was arrested in 2022 after a victim named him in his suicide note. Awase had extended a loan and the deceased stood guarantee for it. The man died by suicide on October 10, 2022, over alleged harassment by the petitioner with respect to the loan’s repayment.

In the case at hand, the court, after going through the evidence, stood convinced that there was no instigation that could attract a case against the accused under Section 306. Addressing a larger issue arising from this case, the bench of justices Abhay S Oka and KV Viswanathan said, “Section 306 IPC appears to be casually and too readily resorted to by the police.”

The court held, “The conduct of the proposed accused and the deceased, their interactions and conversations preceding the unfortunate death of the deceased should be approached from a practical point of view and not divorced from day-to-day realities of life.”

Going through past decisions of the court, justice Viswanathan, writing the judgment for the bench, said, “It is time the investigating agencies are sensitised to the law laid down by this court under Section 306 so that persons are not subjected to the abuse of process of a totally untenable prosecution.” These decisions required a higher threshold to be met to bring a case under this provision.

Section 306 states, “If any person commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of such suicide, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

Not seeking to dilute the effect of this provision, the bench clarified, “While the persons involved in genuine cases where the threshold is met should not be spared, the provision should not be deployed against individuals, only to assuage the immediate feelings of the distraught family of the deceased.”

Going by the facts of the present case, the court observed, “Hyperboles employed in exchanges should not, without anything more, be glorified as an instigation to commit suicide.” In the case at hand, a reading of the suicide note revealed that the accused (Awase) was asking the deceased to repay the loan guaranteed by him and advanced to one Ritesh Malakar. “It could not be said that the appellant by performing his duty of realising outstanding loans at the behest of his employer can be said to have instigated the deceased to commit suicide,” the bench held.

The accused had earlier approached the Madhya Pradesh high court at Indore which too refused to interfere with the order of the trial court framing charges against him. Setting aside the HC order, the top court said, “The trial courts also should exercise great caution and circumspection and should not adopt a ‘play it safe’ syndrome by mechanically framing charges, even if the investigating agencies, in a given case, have shown utter disregard for the ingredients of Section 306.”

In the ultimate analysis, the bench concluded, “We are convinced there are no grounds to frame charges under Section 306 IPC against the appellant. It could certainly not be said that the appellant by his acts created circumstances which left the deceased with no other option except to commit suicide. This is so even if we take the prosecution’s case on a demurrer and at its highest.

While the last exchanges held by the accused with the deceased were “heated” conversations, it was not with the intent to leave the deceased with no other option but to commit suicide, the bench concluded.

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