Harsh Decisions By Employer In Absence Of Mens Rea Does Not Amount To Abetment Of Suicide: Delhi High Court
The Delhi High Court remarked that the harsh decisions taken by the employer in absence of mens rea does not amount to the abetment of suicide.
The Court was dealing with petitions seeking quashing of an order of the Metropolitan Magistrate by which the accused persons were summoned in FIR under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
A Single Bench of Justice Amit Sharma held, “This Court is of the considered opinion that person holding a certain post, whether in private sector or public sector, in the course of duties have to take certain decisions which at time can be harsh causing hardship to an employee. The same cannot, in the absence of the requisite mens rea, be termed as an action which would amount to incitement/abetment in terms of Section 306 of the IPC.”
Advocate Richa Kapoor represented the petitioners while APP Amit Ahlawat represented the respondents.
In this case, a call was received by the Police with respect to self-immolation of a lady. The hospital confirmed the self-burn injuries of the patient. Thereafter, an FIR was registered under Section 309 of IPC and during investigation, a suicide note addressed to the Commissioner of Police, Delhi and to Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of Delhi Pradesh Congress was recovered. In the same, the act of self-immolation was attributed to the mental and physical harassment meted out by a Principal of a College and one Senior Assistant looking after the work in Principal’s Office.
Then the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) recorded separate statements of the survivor wherein she narrated about her complaints to various authorities and attributed the cause of her attempt to suicide by self-immolation to be the alleged harassment by the petitioners. The Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) after considering the closure report and protest petition, summoned the petitioners by observing that there is prima facie material to summon them. Hence, they approached the High Court.
The High Court in the above regard, observed, “There cannot be an absolute rule and each case will depend on its facts and circumstance. At this stage, it will be apposite to refer to the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Madan Mohan Singh vs. State of Gujarat and another (2010) 8 SCC 628. In the said judgment, the Hon’ble Supreme Court was dealing with a case seeking quashing of FIR under Sections 306 and 294(b) of the IPC, wherein the deceased was the employee of the appellant therein. In the said case the deceased had left a suicide note wherein, the deceased stated that his life had been ruined by the appellant’s style of functioning.”
Furthermore, the Court noted that all the complaints filed by the deceased were closed after due enquiry and the said complaints were dealt by different statutory bodies which were not under the immediate control of the State.
“The grievance of the deceased in the suicide note was in fact just not against the present petitioners but also against other persons mentioned therein. The said note even blamed the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Delhi as well as Vice Chancellor of Delhi University”, it said.
The Court added that the incident of attempted suicide has already been enquired into by the Enquiry Committee constituted by National Commission for Women and Shri B.L. Garg Commission apart from the chargesheet in which the petitioners stand exonerated.
Accordingly, the High Court allowed the petitions and set aside the summoning order.
Cause Title- Dr. G K Arora v. State & Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2024:DHC:8394)
Appearance:
Petitioners: Advocates Richa Kapoor, Kunal Anand, Jai Batra, Saloni Mahajan, Sandesh Kumar, Sakshi, and Atika Singh.
Respondents: APP Amit Ahlawat and Advocate Stuti Gupta.
