A single bench of Justice Amit Mahajan if the Delhi High Court has made a observation stating that in cases where a lover commits suicide following a relationship failure, the partner should not be deemed responsible for abetting the act of suicide.
The bench further emphasized that a student’s suicide due to academic underperformance or a client’s suicide following an unfavorable court ruling should not lead to the examiner or lawyer being held accountable for such actions.
“If a lover commits suicide due to love failure, if a student commits suicide because of his poor performance in the examination, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide. For the wrong decision taken by a man of weak or frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide,”
The Court articulated these remarks while granting anticipatory bail to a man and a woman accused of abetting suicide following the tragic death of a young man.
The woman was reported to have been in a relationship with the deceased man, who tragically took his own life upon witnessing the two accused individuals together. It was claimed that the accused individuals provoked the deceased by asserting that they were involved in a physical relationship and were planning to marry in the near future.
Upon reviewing the case, Justice Mahajan noted from the WhatsApp conversations submitted as evidence that the deceased exhibited a sensitive disposition, frequently resorting to threats of suicide whenever the woman declined to engage in conversation with him.
“It is correct that the deceased had written the name of the applicants in suicide note, but, in the opinion of this Court, there is nothing mentioned, as to the nature of threats in the alleged suicide note written by deceased of such an alarming proportion so as to drive a ‘normal person’ to contemplate suicide”.
The assertion that the accused taunted the deceased regarding his unsuccessful romantic relationship with a woman was deemed insufficient to constitute instigation for abetting suicide under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Consequently, the Court proceeded to approve anticipatory bail for both defendants.
