The Kerala High Court, recently quashed criminal proceedings against a Defence aspirant, who was accused of abetting suicide of a girl, who he was in a relationship with. In the matter it was alleged that by “keeping away from the relationship” he instigated the deceased to commit suicide.

Accordingly, a bench of Justice K. Babu while quashing the criminal proceeding for the offence under Section 306 IPC, observed, “From the materials placed before the Court, this Court finds no positive act on the part of the petitioner that instigated or abetted to commit suicide. The prosecution also failed to place on record anything that points to the existence of any positive act on the part of the accused proximate to the time of occurrence”.

Advocate Johnson Gomez appeared for the petitioner-accused and PP M.K. Pushpalatha appeared for the respondent-complainant.

In the present mater, the Police registered a crime under Section 174 CrPC. Later, the Police converted the FIR as provided in Section 154 CrPC alleging offence under Section 306 of IPC against the petitioner based on the First Information Statement given by the father of the deceased.

As per the factual matrix of the case, the deceased was a second-year degree student of S.N College, Shornur, while the petitioner was a final-year degree student in the college. They both fell in love during the period and after completing the course, the petitioner left the college in March 2017 and joined an Academy for Army training at Palakkad for pursuing a career in the Indian Military.

However, after a period of maintaining the relationship, the petitioner started keeping away from the relationship, that allegedly caused severe mental pain to the decease ‘who had ardent love for the petitioner’.

Therefore, on not being able to bear the severe mental pain she committed suicide on August 4, 2017.

The petitioner had thus contended that the final report did not make out the ingredients of the offence punishable under Section 306 of IPC.

It is to be noted as also stipulated in M. Arjunan v. State, (2019) 3 SCC 315, that the essential ingredients of the offence under Section 306 IPC are : (i) the abetment; (ii) the intention of the accused to aid or instigate or abet the deceased to commit suicide. There should be evidence capable of suggesting that the accused intended by such act to instigate the deceased to commit suicide. Unless the ingredients of instigation/abetment to commit suicide are satisfied no person can be convicted under Section 306 IPC.

Resultantly, the bench was of the opinion that prosecution has not made out any prima facie case against the petitioner to implicate him in a crime alleging offence punishable under Section 306 IPC, and quashed the proceedings before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Parappanangadi.

Cause Title: Sunil Kumar v. State of Kerala [Neutral Citation: 2023:KER:53100]

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Justice K. Babu

Agatha Shukla