Blitz Bureau
THE Supreme Court has flagged casual application of the penal provision relating to abetment of suicide by police machinery and said that investigating agencies should be sensitised of the law so that persons are not subjected to the abuse of process of a totally untenable prosecution.
“This court has, over the last several decades, repeatedly reiterated the higher threshold, mandated by law for Section 306 IPC [Now Section 108 read with Section 45 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023] to be attracted.
They, however, seem to have followed more in the breach. Section 306 IPC appears to be casually and too readily resorted to by the police,” it said.
The top court added that while the persons involved in genuine cases where the threshold is met should not be spared, the provision (penalising abetment of suicide) should not be deployed against individuals, only to assuage the immediate feelings of the distraught family of the deceased.
“It is time the investigating agencies are sensitised to the law laid down by this court under Section 306 so that persons are not subjected to the abuse of process of a totally untenable prosecution. The trial courts also should exercise great caution and circumspection and should not adopt a play- it- safe syndrome by mechanically framing charges, even if the investigating agencies in a given case have shown utter disregard for the ingredients of Section 306,” it further said.
A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and KV Viswanathan was hearing a criminal appeal against a judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court declining to discharge the appellant from the offences punishable under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
In February 2023, the trial court had framed charges after the suicide-note mentioned about the deceased being harassed by the appellant. Apart from the suicide note, it further transpired that statements of witnesses were recorded to the effect that the deceased had been disturbed for the past few months and when asked he had mentioned to them that Mahendra Awase, the appellant, was harassing him with respect to repayment of a loan which one Ritesh Malakar had taken from Khargone’s Shree Saakh Cooperative Society Limited.
