Police, courts should not mechanically invoke abetment of suicide offence: Supreme Court

The offence of abetment of suicide under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) should not be invoked mechanically to harass accused persons and assuage feelings of distraught families of those who have died by suicide, the Supreme Court said on Friday..A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and KV Viswanathan said the investigating agencies should be sensitised in such cases so that the accused are not harassed."The Section cannot be invoked only to assuage feelings of the distraught family and it cannot be divorced from day to day realities of life. Investigation agencies should be sensitised about judgments on Section 306 so that accused are not harassed," the Court held.Further, trial courts should not mechanically frame charges in abetment of suicide case, the Bench ordered."The trial courts also should exercise great caution and circumspection and should not adopt a play it safe syndrome by mechanically framing charges, even if the investigating agencies in a given case have shown utter disregard for the ingredients of Section 306," the verdict said..The threshold to prove charges under Section 306 is higher, the Bench underscored."While the persons involved in genuine cases where the threshold is met should not be spared, the provision should not be deployed against individuals, only to assuage the immediate feelings of the distraught family of the deceased," the Court said..The top court was dealing with a case where the deceased before committing suicide had left behind a suicide note wherein he blamed the accused Mahendra Awase for taking the extreme step. The allegation was that the Awase was forcing the deceased to repay a sum of money.The trial court framed charges for abetment of suicide against him.The High Court refused to discharge him in the matter prompting the appeal before the Supreme Court..The top court noted that Section 306 IPC appeared to have been casually and too readily resorted to by the police..The Bench after examining the telephonic conversations between the accused and deceased said that it was unconvinced as to how the accused could have instigated the deceased to commit suicideThe Court said that the conduct of the accused and the deceased and their interactions and conversations preceding the unfortunate death of the deceased, should be approached from a practical point of view and not divorced from day-to-day realities of life."Hyperboles employed in exchanges should not, without anything more, be glorified as an instigation to commit suicide," the Bench underlined..In order to bring a case within the purview of Section 306 IPC, there must be a case of suicide and in the commission of the said offence, the person who is said to have abetted the commission of suicide must have played an active role by an act of instigation or by doing certain act to facilitate the commission of suicide."Therefore, the act of abetment by the person charged with the said offence must be proved and established by the prosecution before he could be convicted under Section 306 IPC," the Court said while discharging the accused.The Court also called for investigating agencies to be sensitised to the law laid down by the Court under Section 306 so that persons are not subjected to the abuse of process of a totally untenable prosecution. It also emphasised the importance of trial courts exercising caution when framing charges in such matters..[Read Judgment]