IMPORTANT POINT
IMPORTANT POINT
Abetment of suicide – There must acts of incitement on part of accused proximate to date on which deceased committed suicide.

JUDGMENT :

ABHAY S. OKA, J.

FACTS

1. The appellant is accused no. 4, who has been charged with an offence punishable under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (for short ‘the IPC’). The appellant filed a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short ‘the Cr.P.C.’) before the High Court of Judicature at Madras. By the impugned judgment, the petition has been rejected.

2. The second respondent is the complainant. The second respondent had five brothers and two sisters. The deceased (Kanagasabha) was one of her two younger brothers. All of them were married except the deceased. On 5th March 2020, the deceased allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison. There was a dispute between the deceased and his elder brother Baskar @ Annamalai. Another brother of the deceased, Anandraj, had constructed a new house, which he sold to the deceased. However, the said house was occupied by Annamalai, his wife, son, and daughter Amutha (appellant). According to the case of the second respondent, Annamalai refused to vacate the house and filed a civil suit against the deceased. Though Annamalai (co-accused) failed in the suit, he declined to vacate the house. Therefore, the deceased sought the intervention of the local MLA. However, the local MLA could not resolve the dispute. The second respondent has made a general allegation that Annamalai and his family members, including the appellant, used to harass the deceased by insulting him on the ground that he was a bachelor. They used to tell the deceased to go anywhere else and die.

3. After the charge sheet was filed, the appellant filed a petition for quashing, which was dismissed by the impugned judgment.

SUBMISSIONS

4. The submission of the learned counsel appearing for the appellant is that even by taking the statements of all the prosecution witnesses as correct, no offence is made out against the appellant. The learned counsel pointed out that after her marriage, the appellant left for the USA on 11th September 2019, and till the date of suicide, she continued to stay in the USA. His submission is that there is nothing placed on record to show that during this period, the appellant instigated the deceased to commit suicide.

5. The learned counsel appearing for the State opposed the appeal by submitting that without the Trial Court recording oral evidence, one cannot conclude at this stage that no case of commission of the offence punishable under Section 306 of IPC was made out against the appellant.

6. The second respondent did not appear despite service of notice.

OUR VIEW

7. We have carefully perused the statements of the second respondent, her husband and other prosecution witnesses. Apart from a general allegation that the appellant, her father and other family members used to insult the deceased and tell him to go out and die, there is no other allegation made against the appellant. However, another incident was brought on the record by the witnesses. The marriage of the appellant was fixed on 4th September 2019. After reading the wedding card, the deceased objected to printing of his name on the card without his consent. Two days before 4th September 2019, there was a quarrel between the family of the appellant and the deceased on the issue. It is alleged that the appellant told the deceased not to attend the marriage.

8. The State Government has placed on record an additional affidavit along with a photocopy of the appellant's passport. The photocopy shows that on 11th September 2019, the appellant left India from Chennai and reached the USA on 12th September 2019. On instructions, the learned counsel appearing for the first respondent accepted that till 5th March 2020, the appellant never returned to India. We may note here that in the charge sheet, no material is placed on record to show that any telephonic conversation occurred between the appellant and the deceased between 12th September 2019 and 5th March 2020.

9. The other material placed on record