Close Proximity Must Be Such As To Create A Clear Nexus Between Act Of Instigation & Suicide: SC Quashes Abetment To Suicide Case

The Supreme Court while quashing an abetment to suicide case, held that the close proximity must be such as to create a clear nexus between the act of instigation and suicide.

The Court was deciding a Criminal Appeal filed by the accused persons involving husband and in-laws of the deceased woman, challenging the Judgment of the Bombay High Court by which their Writ Petition was dismissed.

The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K.V. Viswanathan observed, “Even if we take the date of the mahalokadalat to be 17th February 2015 to be the factually correct one, there is enough gap between the two incidents to render the instigation or incitement by the appellants, nugatory. The cardinal principle of the subject-matter at hand is that there must be a close proximity between the positive act of instigation by the accused person and the commission of suicide by the victim. The close proximity should be such as to create a clear nexus between the act of instigation and the act of suicide.”

The Bench added that, a gap of over a month would be sufficient time to dissolve the nexus or the proximate link between the two acts.

AOR Vatsalya Vigya and Advocate Niteen V. Gaware appeared for the Appellants while AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande and Siddharth Dharmadhikari appeared for the Respondents.

In this case, in 2015, the Police Station received an Accidental Death Report by a man stating that his sister aged about 25 years had committed suicide by hanging herself from the iron pipe situated in the bathroom of her paternal house where she had been residing for the past two years. Subsequently the deceased woman’s mother lodged a Complaint according to which her daughter got married in 2009, after which she had given birth to twin sons. It was stated that after marriage, disputes arose between the deceased and her husband and in-laws from time to time. It was alleged that the deceased was mentally and physically tortured at her matrimonial house. Soon thereafter, owing to persisting acrimony at her matrimonial home, the deceased and her husband started residing separately, away from the matrimonial home.

It was further alleged that in 2013, the husband had physically abused the deceased over a demand of Rs. 20 lakhs for the purchase of a new plot of land. Resultantly, the deceased came back at her paternal house and subsequently, a case was registered against the husband and in-laws. During the pendency of the said case, a mahalokadalat was held wherein the deceased was advised to re-marry. Thereafter, the deceased would frequently say that she would commit suicide as her life no longer held any meaning. Pursuantly, one day, she committed suicide by hanging herself with the aid of a saree. Hence, an FIR was lodged against the accused persons i.e., the Appellants (husband and in-laws). Being aggrieved, they went to the Trial Court but it rejected their Application. Then they went to the High Court but it also dismissed their Writ Petition. Therefore, they filed an Appeal before the Apex Court.

The Supreme Court in the above regard, noted, “Section 306 read with Section 107 of IPC, has been interpreted, time and again, and its principles are well-established. To attract the offence of abetment to suicide, it is important to establish proof of direct or indirect acts of instigation or incitement of suicide by the accused, which must be in close proximity to the commission of suicide by the deceased. Such instigation or incitement should reveal a clear mens rea to abet the commission of suicide and should put the victim in such a position that he/she would have no other option but to commit suicide.”

The Court elucidated that, to bring a charge under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the act of abetment would require the positive act of instigating or intentionally aiding another person to commit suicide and without such mens rea on the part of the accused person, a charge under the said Section cannot be sustained.

“Abetment also requires an active act, direct or indirect, on the part of the accused person which left the deceased with no other option but to commit suicide. … This Court held that abetment involves the mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing of a thing. Therefore, without a positive act on the part of the accused to instigate or aid a person in committing suicide, conviction cannot be sustained”, it added.

Furthermore, the Court reiterated that, since each person reacts differently to the same provocation depending on a variety of factors, it is impossible to lay down a straightjacket formula to deal with such cases and, therefore, every such case has to be decided on the basis of its own facts and circumstances.

“… the element of mens rea cannot simply be presumed or inferred, instead it must be evident and explicitly discernible. Without this, the foundational requirement for establishing abetment under the law, that is deliberate and conspicuous intention to provoke or contribute to the act of suicide, would remain unfulfilled”, it also reiterated.

The Court said that an instigation is to goad, urge forward, provoke, incite or encourage to do “an act” and in order to satisfy the requirement of instigation though it is not necessary that actual words must be used to that effect or what constitutes instigation must necessarily and specifically be suggestive of the consequence, however, a reasonable certainty to incite the consequence must be capable of being spelt out.

“… a word uttered in the fit of anger or emotion without intending the consequences to actually follow cannot be said to be instigation. … a mere allegation of harassment of the deceased by another person would not suffice unless there is such action on the part of the accused which compels the person to commit suicide”, it further noted.

Moreover, the Court emphasised that, in order to link the act of instigation to the act of suicide, the two occurrences must be in close proximity to each other so as to form a nexus or a chain with the act of suicide by the deceased being a direct result of the act of instigation by the accused person.

“There is a clear gap of over a month between the incident at the mahalokadalat and the commission of suicide. We therefore find that the courts below have erroneously accepted the prosecution story that the act of suicide by the deceased was a direct result of the words uttered by the appellants at the mahalokadalat”, it remarked.

Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Appeal, set aside the impugned Judgment, and discharged the accused persons.

Cause Title- Prakash and Others v. The State of Maharashtra and Another (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 1020)

Appearance:

Appellants: AOR Vatsalya Vigya, Advocates Niteen V. Gaware, and Mahesh Prakash Shinde.

Respondents: AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Advocates Siddharth Dharmadhikari, and Sourav Singh.

Click here to read/download the Judgment