Delhi High Court: In the present case, two applications were clubbed that were filed under Section 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, seeking grant of pre-arrest bail in FIR dated 6-5-2023, for offence under Section 306 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’), registered at Police Station Vivek Vihar. Amit Mahajan, J.*, opined that prima facie, the alleged suicide note only expressed a state of anguish of the deceased towards applicants, but it could not be inferred that applicants had any intention, that led the deceased to commit suicide. The Court thus opined that the custodial interrogation of applicants was not required and directed that applicants should be released on bail.
Background
The FIR was registered on a complaint made by the deceased’s father alleging that applicants had instigated the deceased to commit suicide. It was submitted that applicant 1 was in a romantic relationship with the deceased and applicant along with Applicant 2, a common friend. It was alleged that on 29-4-2023, the deceased left the house with his friend, in his car, on the pretext of going out for some work. Later, the deceased called his parents and told them that after leaving the house, he had gone to Gurugram, Haryana, where he saw applicants together and upon enquiring as to why they both were meeting; a scuffle took place between the deceased and applicants, in which the deceased sustained injuries and his car was also damaged by applicants by throwing bricks.
It was alleged that while the deceased was leaving the place of incident, applicants instigated him by saying that they made physical relations with each other and would get married soon and that the deceased did not have manhood abilities and he should commit suicide or else they would upload the images of his broken car window along with the photographs of the deceased. On 30-4-2023, around 11 am, the deceased’s mother found the door of his room half open and thereafter, found body of the deceased hanging on the fan with a chunni, and on 1-5-2023, the deceased’s father got to know about the relationship of the deceased with applicant 1, when he got the phone of the deceased unlocked. A suicide note was also recovered in which the deceased had written that he was committing suicide because of present applicants on 30-4-2023 at 6:50 am.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court observed that for an offence under Section 306 of IPC, there were twin requirements, i.e., suicide and abetment to commit suicide. The Court relied on Randhir Singh v. State of Punjab, (2004) 13 SCC 129, wherein it was held that “abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding that person in doing of a thing. In cases of conspiracy also it would involve that mental process of entering into conspiracy for the doing of that thing. A more active role which can be described as instigating or aiding the doing of a thing is required before a person can be said to be abetting the commission of offence under Section 306 of IPC.”.
The Court took note of the WhatsApp chats and opined that the deceased was of sensitive nature and constantly threatened applicant of committing suicide whenever she refused to talk to him. The sister of the deceased used to request applicant 1 to talk to the deceased and promised her that the deceased would not do any wrong to her.
The Court further noted that applicants were granted interim protection by this Court vide orders dated 2-8-2023 and 21-9-2023 respectively and had joined the investigation since then.
The Court opined that “if a lover commits suicide due to love failure, if a student commits suicide because of his poor performance in the examination, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide. For the wrong decision taken by a man of weak or frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide”.
The Court stated that it was correct that the deceased had written the name of applicants in suicide note, but it opined that there was nothing mentioned, as to the nature of threats in the alleged suicide note written by deceased of such an alarming proportion so as to drive a ‘normal person’ to contemplate suicide. The Court further opined that the allegation with respect to applicants teasing the deceased in regard to the failure of his romantic relationship with applicant, however, did not appear to be instigation which would amount to abetment of suicide in terms of Section 306 of IPC.
The Court opined that prima facie, the alleged suicide note only expressed a state of anguish of the deceased towards applicants, but it could not be inferred that applicants had any intention, that led the deceased to commit suicide. The Court relied on Bhadresh Bipinbhai Sheth v. State of Gujarat, (2016) 1 SCC 152 and opined that applicants had joined the investigation and were fully cooperating with the investigating agency and were not likely to abscond, and therefore, custodial interrogation should be avoided since, a great ignominy, humiliation and disgrace was attached to arrest.
The Court thus held that the custodial interrogation of applicants was not required and directed that applicants should be released on bail.
[X v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2024 SCC OnLine Del 2690, decided on 16-4-2024]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Amit Mahajan
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Applicants: Maninder Singh, Senior Advocate; Vineet Jain, Arjun Sanjay, Aekta Vats, Simran Chaudhary, Advocate
For the Respondents: Utkarsh, APP; Urvashi Sharma, Advocate
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