Source: https://mynation.net/docs/279-2001/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:29:21+00:00

Document:
After recording statements of the witnesses and on receipt of the opinion of the CFSL as regards the handwriting on the suicide note, a charge- sheet was filed against the Appellant , his mother Rajkumari, Sisters Pushpa Mittal, Shobha Jain, Veena Bansal, Manju Gupta, Kusum Gupta and their husbands, Ram Avtar Mittal, Vinod Jain, Dinesh Kumar, S.S. Gupta and Khem Chand. Charges were framed against all the accused persons for offences punishable under Section 498A/306IPC. After recording all the prosecution evidence, statements of the accused under Section 313Cr. P.C. and the defence evidence, all the other accused except the mother-in-law of the deceased who died during the trial and the Appellant herein were acquitted. The Appellant was convicted for the aforementioned offences and awarded a sentence of Rigorous Imprisonment for two years with a fine of `10,000/- and in default thereof, to further undergo Simple Imprisonment for six months for offence under Section 498A IPC and Rigorous Imprisonment for seven years with fine of `10,000/- and in default thereof to under Simple Imprisonment for six months for offence under Section 306IPC. This judgment and order on sentence is impugned in the present appeal.
Learned counsel for the Appellant contends that neither in the two dying declarations Ex. P1 and PA, nor in the testimony of three witnesses i.e. PW1 Vinod Kumar, brother-in-law of the deceased; PW 3 Mridula Gupta, sister of the deceased and PW 4 P.K. Gupta, the brother of the deceased, there is any allegation of any willful conduct which would have caused harassment to the extent of driving the deceased to commit suicide or cause any danger to her life or limb. In the two dying declarations and the testimony of the witnesses, there is no allegation of omission or commission of an act on the part of the Appellant which would amount to an instigation to commit suicide. Learned counsel for the Appellant contends that taking the evidence of the prosecution on its face value and believing the same to be proved, the only allegation is that the Appellant did not take care and failed to fulfil his responsibilities towards his wife and child and only fulfilled his duties towards his mother and sisters. Such an allegation cannot amount to harassment of the kind which would drive a woman to commit suicide. The allegations levelled are vague. Even the brother and the sister of the deceased have only stated that she was being harassed by her husband and in-laws. Reliance is placed on Mankama v. State of Kerala 2009 (10) SCC 164. For a married life spanning for more than 10 years, no specific incident of harassment has been given. It is contended that a cumulative reading of the prosecution case shows that firstly the Appellant did not give importance and weightage to the deceased but to his mother and sisters. Secondly, the mother- in-law and sisters-in-law were doing some black magic and the husband was not taking any action thereon. Thus, the Appellant could not be held guilty for offences punishable under Section 306IPC or Section 498AIPC. Relying on Sohan Raj Sharma v. State of Haryana 2008 (11) SCC 215, it is contended that in cases of alleged abetment of suicide there must be proof of direct or indirect acts of incitement to the commission of suicide which is absent in the present case. The presumption as available under Section 113A of the Evidence Act is not applicable in the present case as the parties were married for more than nine years. The fact that she had no money is discredited by her dying declaration wherein she states that all her household articles, money in the bank accounts and jewellery be given to her brother as they did not belong to the Appellant. Thus, she had sufficient funds and resources with her. It is apparent that due to depression she became revengeful. Her mental depravity was to the extent that she not only took her life but also the life of her 9 years old child.
It is further contended that there is no allegation that the deceased was thrown out of the matrimonial home at Gurgaon. From her dying declarations and the statements of her brother and sister, it is clear that she left the matrimonial home within 1½ to 2 years of marriage of her own will and was living in an independent home with the Appellant. The statements of the witnesses and the dying declaration clearly show that not only the deceased did not want to take any responsibility of the old aged mother-in-law but she did not even approve of her husband taking care of her mother-in-law. The case of the prosecution is at best a normal trivial household difference caused due to the Appellant going to Gurgaon to his mother. Reliance is placed on Bhagwan Das v. Karta Singh Ors. 2007 (11) SCC 205 and Nagesh Tyagi v. State2000 III AD (Crl.) DHC 114 to contend that disputes on trivial issue with the husband does not make him liable for offences punishable under Section 498Aand 306 IPC. The statements of the prosecution witnesses and the dying declaration prove the statement of the Appellant given under Section 313 Cr. P.C. that he was living at Gurgaon for the last five months as his mother was not well and after the younger sister’s marriage which was performed 4-5 months ago, there was no one to look after his ailing mother. The Appellant regularly paid the rent and maintenance expenses to deceased by cheque through Saving Account No. 8953, Sate Bank of Bikaner Jaipur, Faiz Road, Karol Bagh, Delhi from April 1989 onwards. Prior to this, he paid the rent to the landlord and maintenance to the deceased in cash. The fact that the Appellant was maintaining the two of them is evident as the son was studying in a good public school of Delhi i.e. D.P.S., Mathura Road and there was money in the various bank accounts of the deceased. From the alleged dying declaration Ex.PA, it is apparent that soon before her death, the deceased was harassed by her landlady and her two daughters who were taking undue advantage of her position and causing mental harassment. Since she was sad for this reason, she committed suicide. Thus, the proximate reason for committing the suicide was not the conduct of the Appellant but that of the landlady and her two daughters. It is thus prayed that the Appellant be acquitted.
Learned APP for the State on the other hand contends that, two suicide notes Ex. P1 and PA clearly depicts that the Appellant was very often residing with his mother at Gurgaon and did not take any responsibility of his wife and child. Merely paying rent or giving school fees of the child does not absolve him of his responsibilities towards his wife and son. The suicide notes have been duly proved to be in the handwriting of the deceased by the testimony of PW 1, PW3 and PW4 and the CFSL report Ex. PW9/A. PW3 in her testimony has stated that whenever her sister met her, she complained about the harassment meted out to her by all the accused persons. Similarly, PW 4 has also stated that whenever his sister met him, she used to say that she was not being cared by her husband Ashok and was not given money for expenditure by him. She also used to say that she was taunted by her husband, mother-in- law and sisters-in-law and obscene calls were made to her by the husband of her sister-in-law. The mention about the landlady and her two daughters in the dying declaration is only to the extent that they were taking advantage of her situation for the last two months and these allegations do not amount to abetment of suicide. It is thus prayed that the appeal be dismissed being devoid of any merit.
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“6. Learned Counsel for the appellant submitted that letter Ex.PX in no way establishes that the appellant had abeted the suicide. As a matter of fact, the fact that the deceased took the lives of two innocent children and then committed suicide without any doubt establishes that she was mentally unsound. The letter at the most describes the accused as a sexual pervert, but his behaviour, if any, cannot be taken to be an act of abeting the suicide. It is pointed out that in Ex Px she has clearly stated that she wanted to take appellants’ life.
Learned Counsel for the respondents-State on the other hand supported the judgment of the courts below.
306 ABETMENT OF SUICIDE. If any person commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of such suicide, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
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. More active role which can be described as instigating or aiding the doing of a thing it required before a person can be said to be abetting the commission of offence under Section 306of IPC.
In State of West Bengal v. Orilal Jaiswal1 this Court has observed that the courts should be extremely careful in assessing the facts and circumstances of each case and the evidence adduced in the trial for the purpose of finding whether the cruelty meted out to the victim had in fact induced her to end her life by committing suicide. If it transpires to the Court that a victim committing suicide was hypersensitive to ordinary petulance, discord and differences in domestic life quite common to the society to which the victim belonged and such petulance discord and differences were not expected to induce a similarly circumstanced individual in a given society to commit suicide, the conscience of the Court should not be satisfied for basing a finding that the accused charged of abetting the offence of suicide should be found guilty.
In cases of alleged abetment of suicide there must be proof of direct or indirect acts of incitement to the commission of suicide. The mere fact that the husband treated the deceased-wife with cruelty is not enough.
“12. Similarly, in Mahendra Singh and Anr. v. State of M.P. , it was observed by this Court that it is common knowledge that the words uttered in a quarrel or in the spur of the moment or in anger cannot be treated as constituting mens rea. In that case the appellant said to the deceased “to go and die”. As a result of such utterance, the deceased went and committed suicide. However, the Supreme Court observed that no offence under Section 306 IPC read with Section 107 IPC was made out because there was no element of mens rea.
In our opinion the view taken by the High Court is correct. It often happens that there are disputes and discords in the matrimonial home and a wife is often harassed by the husband or her in-laws. This, however, in our opinion would not by itself and without something more attract Section 306 IPC read with Section 107 IPC.
Looking at the allegation in totality, this would at best be a case where the Appellant deserted his wife and did not take care of her and their child. The same cannot be an act of omission or commission on the part of the husband so as to instigate her to commit suicide nor can such an act be said to be an act of cruelty which may drive a woman to commit suicide or cause injury or harm to body or limb. The Appellant is thus entitled to be acquitted of the offences charged i.e. Sections 306/498AIPC. The impugned judgment is set aside. The appeal is, accordingly, allowed. The bail bond and the surety bond of the Appellant are discharged.
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