Utkarsh Anand in Hindustan Times
10 Oct.24 :The Supreme Court has clarified the necessary conditions for establishing the offence of abetment of suicide, ruling that a person can only be charged if they provided “direct and alarming encouragement” that left the deceased with “no option but to commit suicide”.
A view of the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi on Thursday. (Hindustan Times)
Setting a clear framework to prevent wrongful prosecutions based on emotional relationships or professional tensions, the court held that simply having a connection to someone who died by suicide, or even being involved in a dispute with them, is not enough to justify a charge of abetment. The judgement will likely benefit family members and managers/employers of those who die by suicide, some of whom have faced harassment with charges of abetting the suicide.
A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra underlined the need for direct incitement or overwhelming harassment leading to a person’s psychological distress, as it implored courts to differentiate between emotional conflicts and clear-cut cases of abetment.
In the case at hand, the bench overturned a 2017 decision by the Allahabad high court, concluding that the facts did not support a prima facie case of abetment. The deceased, an employee of Hindustan Unilever Limited, had committed suicide in November 2006 after a meeting where he felt harassed by his superiors. However, the bench found that there was no conclusive evidence indicating that the accused had intended his suicide. Rather, the nature of the allegations — linked to a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) initiative — did not sufficiently demonstrate direct and intentional provocation by the accused, it held.
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In its judgment delivered last week, the bench laid down two main categories of relationships that could potentially lead to charges of abetment — personal relationships, such as those involving close sentimental or physical ties; and professional or official relationships, where obligations are typically defined by official roles or policies.
The first category involves intimate relationships, such as family or close sentimental ties, where emotions run high, and disputes can trigger psychological distress. The bench highlighted that in such cases, a simple argument or exchange of harsh words may cause a psychological imbalance, but this alone is insufficient for a charge of abetment.
“In the case of former category sometimes a normal quarrel or the hot exchange of words may result into immediate psychological imbalance, consequently creating a situation of depression, loss of charm in life, and if the person is unable to control sentiments of expectations, it may give temptations to the person to commit suicide, e.g., when there is a relation of husband and wife, mother and son, brother and sister, sister and sister and other relations of such type, where sentimental tie is by blood or due to physical relations,” noted the judgment.
The second category applies to professional relationships where obligations are dictated by official duties. In these cases, the top court emphasised that professional disputes or perceived harassment must reach an extreme level to fulfil the criteria for abetment.
“In the case of second category, the tie is on account of official relations, where the expectations would be to discharge the obligations as provided for such duty in law and to receive the considerations as provided in law. In normal circumstances, relationships by sentimental tie cannot be equated with the official relationship,” stated the judgment.
To secure a conviction under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which pertains to the abetment of suicide, the bench clarified that there must be evidence suggesting the accused intended to provoke the suicide or directly acted to make the deceased feel trapped, with no other recourse. To be sure, Section 306 of IPC has been replaced by Section 108 in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) — the new penal law that came into effect from July 1.
“The test that the court should adopt in this type of cases is to make an endeavour to ascertain on the basis of the materials on record whether there is anything to indicate even prima facie that the accused intended the consequences of the act, i.e., suicide. Over a period of time, the trend of the courts is that such intention can be read into or gathered only after a full-fledged trial,” it noted.
The bench also addressed a common issue with such cases where the act of suicide alone is often seen as sufficient to assume abetment. The judgment cautioned against this trend, noting that intention must be carefully examined. It pointed out that reliance solely on suicide, without considering the mental and situational context, could lead to wrongful convictions.
“It is the inability on the part of the courts to understand and apply the correct principles of law to the cases of abetment of suicide, which leads to unnecessary prosecutions…The Courts should know how to apply the correct principles of law governing abetment of suicide to the facts on record,” it held.
Highlighting the importance of examining whether actions such as public humiliation, unbearable harassment or severe threats directly pushed the deceased towards suicide, the judgment added: “It is ultimately for the police and the courts of law to look into the matter and see that the persons against whom allegations have been levelled are not unnecessarily harassed or they are not put to trial just for the sake of prosecuting them.”
Source: hindustantimes
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