Entering Into Engagement With Reluctancy To Marry Cannot Be Abetment Of Suicide U/S 306 IPC: Orissa High Court

The Orissa High Court held that entering into the engagement with a person with reluctancy to marry him/her cannot alone be abetment of suicide under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The Court held thus in an application under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) filed by a man in abetment of suicide case.

A Single Bench of Justice Sibo Sankar Mishra observed, “… it is to be considered, that every relationship carries very heavy emotional burden and feelings and hence, those are matter of emotions where rationality and objectivity takes a backseat. Thus, in such delicate issues of heart, much is expected from the elders of families and the parents of both sides to act maturely and empathically, understands the views of the people engaged or going to be engaged in a relationship, the views so expressed vocally as well as the feeling which have not so expressly showed. Therefore, this court feels that act of entering into the engagement with the deceased by the petitioner with reluctancy to marry her alone cannot be made a penal offence, much less under Section 306 IPC.”

The Bench added that the reluctance to give irrevocable commitment for life-time and to take responsibility cannot culminate into mens rea to commit a criminal offence.

Senior Advocate Samir Kumar Mishra represented the petitioner while Additional Standing Counsel P.K. Maharaj and Advocate Himanshu Sekhar Mishra represented the opposite parties.

Factual Background -

The deceased woman was pursuing her Ph.D in Electrical Engineering and the families of the petitioner and the deceased were in the process of arranging and formalising the marriage between them since 2019. The petitioner at that time was pursuing his medical education at AIIMS so he insisted upon postponing the marriage ceremony by two years. Apparently, the family of the deceased could not agree for waiting for such long time and hence, in November 2020, they settled her marriage with a boy from Nagpur of which the ring ceremony took place. However, the engagement could not be fructified into marriage and the same was called off sometime in February 2021 by the deceased’s family due to discontentment. In May 2021, again talks between the families of the petitioner and deceased to formalise the proposal of marriage restarted, which culminated into the ring ceremony in the same month.

In August 2021, the deceased realised that the petitioner was not happy with the marriage proposal with her. The respective families insisted both to spend some time together and nothing worked in favour of alliance. Apparently, one day, the father of the deceased informed her that the petitioner was not willing to get married and further expressed his sorrow for that. Thereafter, on a call, the petitioner was alleged to have communicated his decision to call of the marriage to the deceased in a harsh manner. This made her very volatile and mentally unstable and resultantly, she was found to have committed suicide by hanging herself with ceiling fan. The Magistrate took cognizance of the case against the petitioner and being aggrieved by this, he was before the High Court.

The High Court in the above context of the case noted, “Although, the probative value of the statements of the witnesses cannot be gone into at this stage, but the statements of these witnesses do not disclose what exactly transpired between the deceased and the petitioner. The same fact is also reflected in the Charge-sheet filed by the investigating officer. This aspect of the matter cannot be elucidated from the evidence of any witness and that would always be speculative.”

The Court said that in the absence of exact conversations that had taken place between the deceased and the petitioner on that fateful night, crucial element of offence punishable under Section 306 IPC i.e., mens rea to commit offence of abatement of suicide on the part of the accused, which requires commission of direct or active act by the accused which led deceased to commit suicide seeing no other option and such act must be intended to push the victim to a point of no return and she commits suicide are clearly missing in the facts of the case.

“Further, from the charge-sheet itself, the prosecution’s case is that the deceased was very sad and felt ashamed as she had already suffered a broken engagement with the boy from Nagpur. Previous to that also, talks for finalising marriage between the petitioner and the deceased could not be finalised, such repeated breaking of engagement of a girl belonging to Marwari community, which is a very small community in Odisha, would definitely cause severe mental stress. Therefore, in view of the fact that it is admitted case of the prosecution that breaking of the engagement with the boy from Nagpur also contributed to the mental stress and agony of the deceased for which the petitioner cannot be blamed for”, it added.

The Court further observed that the petitioner showed his reluctance to the proposal of marrying the deceased from the very beginning and it is definitely expected from anyone to be very clear about his or her stand in any relationship, and from the petitioner it was expected even more as he himself is a doctor, if he did not wish to marry the deceased he should have said no to the proposal at the very first instance without any caveats. It also said that getting himself engaged with reluctancy to marry the deceased was even worse.

Accordingly, the High Court allowed the petition and quashed the case against the petitioner.

Cause Title- Dr. Priyank Tapuria v. State of Orissa & Another

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