If A Man Commits Suicide Due To Love Failure, Girlfriend Cannot Be Booked; Chhattisgarh High Court
Recently, the Chhattisgarh High Court held that if a man commits suicide due to love failure, his girlfriend cannot be abetted for that. The court dissolved the abetment of suicide charges against a 24-year-old and her two brothers who were charged for the suicide of her former lover’s suicide.
Single-judge Justice, Parth Prateem Sahu observed that if a student committed suicide due to the poor performance in exams or “a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide”.
Justice Sahu further added that if a man that have frail mentality took a wrong decision, “another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide”. In the afore mentioned case, the deceased committee suicide in his house on January 23 of this year. He left a suicide note blaming the women and her two brothers, as per the prosecution.
The suicide was two page long in which the deceased claimed that he had a love affair with the woman for eight years but she broke the relation with him and married another man. He further added that her two brothers threatened him for keeping relations with their sister which prompted him to the take the extreme step.
After receiving complaint by the man’s uncle, the Rajnandgon police arrested the woman and her two brothers. They were charged with Section 306 (abetment to suicide) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on October 13th. The trio went forth and filed petition in High Court against the charges framed on them by the trial court.
The prosecution produced the statements given by the deceased man’s friends, family and relatives who said that the woman had taken loan from the man and did not return it but broke up with him. The statements also spoke about the woman’s two brothers threatening the man.
However, Justice Sahu could not find any prima facie (first impression) material available on record to prosecute the woman and others. The court observed that the oral evidence was not a good enough reason to charge against abetment of suicide.
The Chhattisgarh High Court underscored that the “deceased was under depression due to betrayal by applicant and as such he was compelled to take drastic step of committing suicide” and said that these statements are “not sufficient to conclude guilt” for any of the applicants because the all the version of “all these witnesses is based on what the deceased told them”.
The court further underscored that the there is no indications on the “the applicants instigated, conspired, or provoked the deceased to commit suicide”. By citing the suicide note, the court said that it does not show the proportion of alarm that would drive a “normal person” to commit suicide.
The court stated that there was no mention of the alleged threats in the suicide that clarified whether the threat was continuous or a single incident, “whether it was much prior to the suicide or in close proximity when the suicide was committed”. The court said, if the man had felt threatened or annoyed, he should have visited the police and “lodged a complaint” but he had not done it.
The court said the letter only showed the man’s state of anguish due to the betrayal he received from the woman in their love affair but cannot be read as the woman intended to drive the man to commit suicide.
“In simple words, there is nothing in suicide letter to even suggest that the applicants have made such an atmosphere around the deceased that there was no option left for him but to commit suicide”, held the Court.
With inputs from Bar and Bench.
