f.ttii!E;.|5g HIGHCOURT OF CHHATTISGARH, BILASPUR (Single Bench: Hon'ble Shri Sunil Kumar Sinha, J) Criminal Appeal No. 1152 of 1992 Kishore Kumar (dead) & Others Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh (Now State of Chhattisgarh) SW ^•SS8 JUDGMENT Post for Judgment : /^-/09/2010 Sd/- Sunil Kumar Sinha Judge "• iiiRa,. SE^':l»fc1<gg HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH. BILASPUR (Sinale Bench: Hon'ble Shri Sunil Kumar Sinha. Jl APPELLANTS RESPONDENT Criminal Appeal No. 1152 of 1992 1 KishoreKumar.son of Kamta Prasad Dube, aged about 25 years Dead - Appeal stands abated vide court order dated 10.12.2009 2 Kamta Prasad, son of Maliram Dube, aged about 60 years Dead - Appeal stands abated vide court order dated 10.12.2009 3 Kamla Bai, wife of Kamta Prasad, aged about 55 years 4 Devendra Kala, wife of Ramkumar Dube,aged 25 years 5 Rama Tiwari, wife of Rajaram Tiwari, aged about 22 years All residents of Kududand, Bilaspur, District Bilaspur (MP) (Now Chhattisgarh) Versus State of Madhya Pradesh (Now State of Chhattisgarh) (Appeal under Section 374 (21 ofThe Code of Criminal Procedure, 19731 Appearance: Mr. Sunil Sahu, Advocate for the appellant. Mr. Rajendra Tripathi, Panel Lawyerforthe State. JUDGMENT (//^.09.2010) Sun i 1 Kumar Sinha, J. This appeal is directed against the judgment dated 24 of November, 1992 passed in Sessions Trial No. 319/91 by the Seventh Additional SessiQns Judge, Bilaspur. ./"... • • •• ' ' ! Criminal Apoeal No. 1152 of1992 -^ ;itl> (2) By the impugned judgment, the appellants have been convicted u/s 306 IPC and sentenced to undergo R.l. for six years and to pay fine of Rs.1,000/-, in default of payment of fine to further undergo R.l. for four months. (3) Appellant No.1- Kishore Kumar and appellant No. 2- Kamta Prasad died during the pendency of the appeal, therefore, the appeal filed on behalf of these appellants has been dismissed as abated. (4) The facts, briefly stated, are as under:- Deceased- Mandakini Bai was married to appellant No.1- Kishore Kumar, 4 years prior to the date of incident which took place on 19.10.90. Appellant No.1 was the husband; appellant No.2 was the father-in-law; appellant No. 3 was the mother-in-law; appellant No.4 was the sister-in-law (jethani) and appellant No.5 was the sister-in-law (nanad) of the deceased. On 19.10.90 at about 5.30, the deceased committed suicide by hanging. The case of the prosecution is that the accused persons used to ill-treat the deceased, therefore, she committed suicideon the said date in her in-laws place. Kamta Prasad (father-in-law) reported the matter to the Mahila Police Station, on which, Merg No. 5/90 was registered. Later on, a First Information Report (Ex.-P/7) was registered and one coconut-rope was seized vide seizure memo Ex.-P/S. The statements of witnesses were recorded and after completion of the investigation, charge-sheet was filed in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bilaspur, who in turn committed the matter to the Sessions Court, from where, it was received on / transfer by the Seventh Additional Sessions Judge, who conducted the trial and convicfed & sentenced the appellants as aforementioned. (5) The learned Sessions Judge, relied on the testimonies of Kumari Bai (PW-1 - mother of the deceased), Ludhav Prasad (PW-2 - father of ,ttae deceased) and Bhuneshwar (PW-4 - neighbour of the appellants). :tflSi \ •:.!IBi ^ Criminal Appeal No. 1152 of 1992 (6) Mr. Sunil Sahu, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellants, argued that there was hardly any evidence on record to show that the appellants abetted the deceased to commit suicide. He also argued that it comes in the evidence of father of the deceased that the deceased was residing sep.arately with her husband- Kishore Kumar (who died during the pendency of the appeal), therefore, the conviction of the present appellants 3 to 5 is based on no positive evidence on record and they may be acquitted ofthe charges framed against them. (7) On the other hand, Mr. Rajendra Tripathi, learned Panel Lawyer appearing on behalf of the State, opposed these arguments and supported the judgment passed by the Sessions Court. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties at length and have also perused the records of the sessions case. (9) There is no dispute that the deceased Gommitted suicide on 19.10.90 by hanging. It is evident from the contents of the post-mortem report Ex.-P/9 and the evidence of Dr. O.P. Hazari (PW-10) who opined that the cause of death was asphyxia due to hanging. (10) Kumari Bai (PW-1) is the mother of the deceased. She deposed that the husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law &jethani of the deceased used to treat/her with cruelty. They were not allowing the deceased to / visit- her parent's place. The_deceased visited only four times to her parent's place after her marriage and she used to tell them all these things. Almost similar is the evidence of Ludhav Prasad (PW-2 - father of the deceased). He also admitted that the appellants used to treat the decpased with cruelty which the deceased used to tell him. In para-10 of ^m s Criminal Appeal No. 1152 of 1992 :i:'^g|^-.i^^^. 'fyms &;SLHi>K:lBSStt* -•^3*^^^ his cross-examination, he admitted that the incident of suicide took place at the time of Deepawali. He lastly met with the deceased on the occasion of Tija-Pola. It was one and half month prior to the date of incident. At that time the deceased was living separately along with her husband and she was not liuing with her in-laws and the deceased was telling that there was some problem relating to food etc. Bhuneshwar (PW-4) is neighbour of the appellants. He deposed that he used to hear sound of quarrel from the house of the appellants. The persons in the house used to assault the deceased but he cannot tell as to who used to assault her. According to the version of this witness, he never saw anybody assaulting the deceased. (11) Section 306 IPC provides punishment for abetment of suicide. Therefore, the basic ingredients of offence u/s 306 IPC are suicidal death and abetment thereof. Section 107 IPC defines abetment to mean that a person abets the doing of a thing if he firstly, 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 omissipn, the doing of that thing. Therefore, to attract the ingredients of abetment, the intentio'n of the accused to aid or instigate or abet the / deceased to commit suicide is necessary. Considering the definition of abetment u/s 107 IPC the conviction of accused for an offence u/s 306 therefore would not be sustainable merely on the allegations of harassment ofthe deceased. '"'Y "^1^ ij-~)-^! Criminal Appeal No. 1152 of 1992 (12) In case on hand, if we take the entire evidence of parents of the deceased (PW-1 & PW-2), at fhe most, the evidence would show that the deceased was harassed by the accused persons, which never constitute the ingredient like 'abetment' of the offence punishabte u/s 306 IPC and the conviction of the appellants u/s 306 IPC on the above evidence was not possible. There was no evidence of 'instigation', 'cooperation' or 'initial assistance' by the appellants to commit suicide by the deceased. (13) Moreover, there is evidence to show that since long back from the date of commission of suicide, the deceased was living separately alongwith her husband, and the other appellants were living separately. Therefore, in absence of any definite evidence against the present appellants, the things can be attributed to the husband alone. (14) For the foregoing reasons, the appeal is allowed. The conviction and sentences awarded to appellants 3 to 5 u/s 306 IPC are set-aside. Appellants 3 to 5 are acquitted of the charges framed against them. It is stated that the above appellants are on bail. Their bail bonds are cancelled and sureties stand discharged. Sd/- SunilKumarSinha Judge 'C.I atti