“Go Hang Yourself” Not Abetment To Suicide, Says Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka High Court, in a recent ruling, stated that statements such as “go hang yourself” do not inherently constitute abetment to suicide. The decision was rendered on April 22 by Justice M. Nagaprasanna’s bench in response to a petition involving a man accused of abetting the suicide of a priest in a Udupi church.

According to the FIR lodged against the accused, the priest had taken his own life after a conversation during which the accused allegedly instructed him to “hang himself” due to a relationship with the accused’s wife. The allegations involved triggering the priest by uttering the verbal taunts, which led to his eventual suicide.

The petitioner’s counsel argued that the accused’s words were spoken in distress upon discovering the affair and contended that the priest’s suicide was a consequence of the affair being exposed, not due to the accused’s statement.

Meanwhile, the opposing counsel argued that the priest’s suicide was a direct result of the accused’s threatening words regarding revealing the affair.

“Husband of the lady with whom the deceased father had a certain relationship and blunt out his anger and had uttered words “go and hang yourself” cannot mean that it would become … an offence under IPC – abetment to suicide,” the bench noted, citing precedents set by the Supreme Court in similar cases.

The court further elaborated that the reason for the deceased to commit suicide in the case “may be myriad, one of which could be the factum of him having an illicit relationship with the wife of the petitioner, despite being the father and priest of a church.”

Recognising the intricacies of human psychology, the bench said, “It is trite that the human mind is an enigma, and the task of unravelling the mystery of the human mind can never be accomplished.”