The need for unimpeachable evidence of instigation to convict for abetment of suicide.

HARRIES, C.J. :- This is an application for revision by one Gokul Chandra Chatterjee who was convicted of an offence under S. 306, Penal Code and sentenced to eighteen months rigorous imprisonment.

2. The petitioner was tried by a learned Assistant Sessions Judge sitting with a jury upon a charge of abetment of suicide. His son Biswa Ranjan Chatterjee was also tried with him upon the same charge. The jury unanimously found Biswa Ranjan not guilty and the learned Judge accepted the verdict and acquitted him. The jury however by a majority of three to two found the petitioner guilty and accepting the verdict the learned Judge sentenced him, as I have indicated, to eighteen months rigorous imprisonment. An appeal to the Sessions Judge was dismissed.

3. The charge was concerned with the death of a young woman called Swarnalata who, according to the prosecution committed suicide by standing between the rails in front of a moving train. There was some suggestion in the Court below that this was not a case of suicide, but obviously it was, and it has not been suggested before us that the death was accidental. The allegation against the petitioner was that he along with his son had instigated this young woman to commit suicide on the day previous to her death and on the day of her death shortly before she was killed by the train.

4. This young woman Swarnalata was married to Bankim, a son of the petitioner Gokul. She was the daughter of one Chandi Charan Gauguly of a village called Chaumashina which was not far away from the village in which Gokul lived. It is said that the marriage between Swarnalata and Bankim was an unhappy one and that practically from the outset the young girl who was only about fifteen years of age when she married was ill-treated and assaulted by her mother-in-law, by her husband and Biswa Ranjan, the husbands brother. A son was born to Swarnalata, but it is said that about a mouth after the child was born Swarnalata left the house of Gokul, her father-in-law, and went to her fathers house at Chaumashina. According to the prosecution Swarnalata was really driven away from her father-in-laws house and was deprived of all access to her small son. She wrote a number of letters to her father-in-law and her mother-in-law begging that the child should be sent to Chaumashina, but the petitioner was adamant.

5. On 13th March 1948, Swarnalata according to the prosecution accompanied by her two uncles Anadi (P.W. 1) and Abani (P.W. 3) went to the house of Gokul and there saw her young son. Gokul, it is said, abused Swarnalata and asked her to leave the house at once. Swarnalata who it is said had picked up the child was deprived of the child and Biswa Ranjan pushed her and she fell in the court, yard. She clung to the petitioners feet and begged him to allow her to stay with her child, but it is said that both Gokul and Biswa Ranjan told her to go away and told her to kill herself by taking poison or by placing herself under a railway train. 6. It seems that this occurrence had brought a number of neighbours to the scene, who had assembled in front of the house. The two uncles after this occurrence made a report at the thana and it is significant to note that in the entry in the diary there is no reference whatsoever of any incitement to suicide by either the petitioner or Biswa Ranjan. It seems that after making this report the Head Constable came to Gokul and asked him to allow his daughter-in-law to spend the night at his house, but Gokul would not allow her to do so and Swarnalata and her two uncles had to spend the night elsewhere.

7. The following morning Swarnalata and her two uncles again went to the house of Gokul and found that Swarnalatas husband Bankim was also present, Swarnalata, it is said, on entering the house asked her uncles to go home and Anadi and Abani went to Bankura Railway Station to catch the 10-30 A.M. Down-Gomoh Passenger Train for Ramnagar Railway Station which was their destination.

8. Ac