Madhya Pradesh High Court: In a matter related to abetment of suicide punishable under S. 306 of the Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), a single bench comprising of Deepak Kumar Agarwal, J., held that the present case does not fall under any of the 3 categories as enumerated under S. 107 of the IPC, therefore, the petitioner cannot be held liable for the abetment of suicide of the rape accused. The Court opined that the act of the petitioner of registering FIR against the accused-deceased cannot be considered as “Abetment of suicide”.
Factual Matrix
In the instant matter, the petitioner preferred a petition under S. 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC) for quashing FIR registered for the offence under Ss. 306 read with 34 of the Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) as well as other consequential criminal proceedings arising from it. The impugned FIR was registered against the petitioner after the deceased- Rupesh Gupta committed suicide by handing when the father of the prosecutrix lodged an FIR against the deceased (cousin of the prosecutrix) for rape.
Law Point
✓ S. 107 of the IPC – Abetment of a thing
✓ S. 306 of the IPC – Abetment of suicide
Court’s Observation
The Court observed that it is the duty of the prosecution to establish that the alleged person has abetted the commission of suicide and to make the alleged person liable for an offence punishable under S. 306 IPC. The Court observed that one need to fall in any of the 3 categories as enumerated under S. 107 of the IPC, i.e., “First- Instigates any person to do that thing; or Secondly- Engages with one or more other person or persons in any conspiracy for the doing of that thing, if an act or illegal omission takes place in pursuance of that conspiracy, and in order to the doing of that thing; or Thirdly- Intentionally aids, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of that thing.”, to be held liable for abetment of commission of suicide.
The Court discussed various judgments passed by the Supreme Court and observed that “a person can be said to have instigated another person, when he actively suggests or stimulates him by means of language, direct or indirect. Instigate means to goad or urge forward or to provoke, incite, urge or encourage to do an act.”
The Court observed that in the matter in hand, even after considering the allegations made under the FIR and statements of the witnesses, it cannot be said that petitioner has instigated the deceased to commit suicide. Moreover, it does not mean that the petitioner has instigated the deceased to commit suicide, just because, “there may be an act of the petitioner of getting the FIR registered against the deceased”.
Court’s Verdict
In the light of facts and circumstances of the present case the Court held that the petitioner has not abetted the deceased to commit suicide and quashed the FIR registered for the offence under Ss. 306 and 34 of the IPC as well as consequential criminal proceedings arising from it.
[Shubham v. State of M.P., 2023 SCC OnLine MP 1671, order dated 14-06-2023]
*Judgment by Justice Deepak Kumar Agarwal
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr. Sushil Goswami, Counsel for the Petitioner;
Smt. Kalpana Parmar, Counsel for the Respondent No. 1/State.
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