The central legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of intentional instigation as defined in Section 107 of IPC to prove abetment of suicide, and the consideration of potential impact on the future of the accused in such cases.

JUDGMENT :

T.V. Nalawade, J.

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. By consent, heard both the sides for final disposal.

2. All three proceedings are filed for relief of quashing of First Information Report (FIR) No. 225 of 2019, dated 28-05-2019, registered with Pundliknagar Police Station, Aurangabad. Crime is registered for the offences punishable under Section 306 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 66A, 66C and 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2000. All the applicants are shown as accused in the FIR.

3. The crime is registered on the basis of report given by Sushil Khawase. In the report, he has made allegation that his daughter committed suicide on 24-05-2019 by hanging herself in his house and present applicants are responsible for suicide of his daughter. It is the contention that he was perturbed due to suicide and he started thinking as to why she committed suicide. She was studying in final year B.E Computer course. According to him, on 27-05-2019, when he was examining articles of the deceased daughter, which were in her room, he noticed a chit of two pages of the deceased. According to him, due to this chit, he realized that Sayeesh Kanala, applicant of Criminal Application No. 4142 of 2019, had joined hands with his friends, other applicants and had defamed the deceased. He contended that applicant - Kanala had developed friendship with other girl and by doing that he had mentally harassed the deceased. It is contention that deceased had feeling that her private photographs were made viral after hacking her electronic devices by these applicants and due to that she was disturbed and ultimately she committed suicide.

4. This Court has carefully gone through the record produced which include communication made by Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College, where she was studying and also record in respect of the employment which deceased was likely to get after completing fourth year of engineering course.

5. Submissions made and record show that the deceased had feeling that her electronic devices, like laptop and mobile handset, were hacked by present applicants and they were likely to use that material against her. Submissions made show that Expert's report in respect of laptop is received and it shows that there is nothing to indicate that there was hacking of laptop. Learned APP submitted that mobile handset of the deceased is sent to the Expert for verification to find out as to whether there was hacking in respect of contents of the mobile handset. When incident took place on 24-05-2019, as yet no report/opinion is received in respect of mobile handset.

6. Submissions made show that the deceased had feeling that there was possibility of hacking of aforesaid devices. The submissions made and record show that deceased had break-up with applicant - Kanala, one of the applicants. She was disturbed as she felt that applicant-Kanala had developed intimacy with other girl. According to her, other applicants used to be in the company of applicant - Kanala and they were helping him. Investigation made and submissions do not show that any friend of the deceased had any information about hacking. It is not the case of police that any boy or girl of that college had seen the contents of devices of the deceased with any of the applicants.

7. The material collected is of aforesaid nature and it can be said that the allegations are made on the basis of so-called perception of the deceased that her devices were hacked but nothing objectionable of that kind was found with applicants. When everything is based on perception of the deceased, she had feeling that applicant-Kanala was not with her and he might have developed relation with other girl, it is difficult to infer that there was abetment from applicants to commit suicide.

8. The submissions made and record also show that she had appeared for last semester of B.E. Computer course. Her result was declared and she was declared as “Failed” in the “Art