The main legal point established in the judgment is that mere harassment without positive action would not amount to an offence under Section 306 IPC, emphasizing the need for active instigation or facilitation of suicide to constitute an offence under this section.

JUDGMENT :

The applicants herein are co-accused persons, who have been summoned for trial in Criminal Case No. 1138 of 2022, State Vs. Lokesh and Others, for the offence under sections 306 IPC, which was emanating, as a consequence of registration of the FIR being FIR No. 234 dated 30.07.2020, which has been registered by the complainant Praveen Kumar i.e. respondent no. 2 herein for the alleged involvement of the present applicants in commission of offence under section 306 of the Indian Penal Code.

2. As per the set of allegations which had been leveled in the FIR, there was a suicide note of the deceased which deciphers the act of abetment, as it has been averred in the complaint which was registered on 30.07.2020. The investigation was carried, the charge sheet has been submitted, being Charge Sheet no.1 dated 02.12.2021. The investigating officer, after examination of as many as 20 witnesses, had submitted the charge sheet before the Magistrate concerned, who has taken cognizance on the same for the purposes of trying the present applicants for the offence under section 306 IPC.

3. Learned counsel for the applicants submits, that if the simplicitor decipher of the set of allegations which had been leveled in the FIR are taken into consideration, it does not satisfies the parameters or the ingredients which are required to be satisfied before taking cognizance in order to prima facie establish an offence under Section 306 of IPC. In order to deal with his argument, the reference to the provisions of Section 306 of IPC itself becomes inevitably required to be considered. Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code is extracted hereunder:-

“306. Abetment of suicide.—If any person commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of such suicide, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

4. The basic element which is required to be considered therein in order to constitute an offence that what would be the effect of abetment for the purposes of instigating a person to commit the suicide. It is the debate, which has been made, that in the instant case from the FIR, no element is made out from which an abetment could be said to be established, which will ultimately, according to the applicants’ counsel, in the absence of there being any element of abetment, would itself render the cognizance order to be bad in the eyes of law. In support of his contention, the learned counsel for the applicants has firstly referred to a judgment reported in 2015 (9) SCC 239, State of Kerala and Others Vs. S. Unnikrishnan Nair and Others, wherein, the Hon’ble Apex Court in the said judgment for the purposes of determining, an Act, as to whether, it will fall to be an abetment under section 306 in the light of the judgment of M. Mohan referred to therein, has ultimately drawn a conclusion, that there has to be a satisfaction of certain basic ingredients which is to be satisfied in order to bring an Act within an ambit of Section 306 of IPC. What would be the relevant, is as to this subject at what stage, it was put to consideration before the Court. The opening paragraph of the judgment refers to that it was emanating from an order passed by the Kerala High Court, where, quashing of an FIR was sought in the exercise of its jurisdiction under 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in relation to a conjoint offences under section 182, 194, 195 and 195-A.

5. The establishment of an element of an effect of abetment therein was at the stage, where the FIR was itself put to challenge, without there being any contribution made by the Investigating Officer or by the Trial Court, itself by applying its mind necessitating the summoning of the accused persons for the offence under section 306 of IPC. While considering the effect of abetment, it was at that stage when the scrutiny of the factual matrix was under consideration, when the FIR, was under challenge. Factually, this judgmen