The main legal point established in the judgment is that for the offense of abetment of suicide, there must be a clear mens rea and an active or direct act leading the deceased to commit suicide, and the circumstances and evidence must be carefully examined.

ORDER :

1. This petition under section 482 of Criminal Procedure Code has been filed for quashing the FIR in Crime No. 497/2016, registered at Police Station Narwar, District Shivpuri for offence under sections 306 read with section 34 of Indian Penal Code.

2. The necessary facts for the disposal of the present petition in short are that the, first informant Pawan Jatav informed the police that in between 07:00- 08:00 pm, his brother Jitendra Jatav informed him on telephone that their father Narayan informed that as he is heavily indebted, therefore, he is going to commit suicide by jumping from the bridge. On the information given by Jitendra, when the first informant Pawan Jatav went to the bridge, then he found that one person has jumped from the bridge. It was found that in fact, his father had jumped and accordingly, he was taken to the hospital where his father was declared dead. The police recorded the statements of the witnesses as well as also seized a suicide note from clothes of the deceased. The suicide note reads as under :

^^,d gLr fyf[kr ,d ys[kh; i= lQsn dyj dk ftldk etewu bl Ádkj gS eSa ukjk;.k flag tkVo esjh esjh ifRu ,oa cPpksa ls dksbZ ijs'kkuh ugha gS A dtZ okys eq>s ijs'kku dj jgs gSa A dtZ nsrs&nsrs eSa Fkd x;k gw¡A blfy, eSa vkRegR;k dj jgk gw¡A eksgu dq'kokgk us >wBs dksVZ esa psd yxk, gSA lc ijs'kku djus okys f'koiqjh ds gSaA ,d ekg ls M;wVh ij ugha tkus nsrs jgs gSaA**

3. The witnesses in their statements have also stated that the deceased had taken loan from the applicants as well as from one Sanjay, which was repaid by him but still the applicants were demanding additional money from the deceased and as such, he was being harassed by the applicants, therefore, he committed suicide by jumping from the bridge.

4. It is submitted by the counsel for the applicants that even if the entire allegations are accepted, then it is clear that it may not be an offence under section 306 read with section 34 of Indian Penal Code. If anybody has given money to the deceased and he was demanding his money back, then it cannot be said that the lender of money has abetted the deceased to commit suicide. It is further submitted that there is nothing on record to suggest that the deceased had repaid the entire loan amount and in spite of that, the applicants were demanding additional money. To buttress their contentions, the Counsel for the applicants have relied upon the judgments passed by the Supreme Court in the case of Swami Prahlad Das vs. State of M.P. reported in 1995 SCC (Cri) 943, Sanju vs. State of M.P. reported in AIR 2002 SC 1998, S. S. Chheena vs. Vijay Kumar reported in (2010) 12 SCC 190 and M. Mohan vs. State reported in (2011) 3 SCC 626 and the Judgments passed by this Court in the cases of Ved Prakash vs. State of M.P. reported in 1995 Cr.L.J. 893, Ram Naresh vs. State of M.P., reported in 2002 (2) M.P.L.J. 360, Laxmi Prasad vs. State of M.P. reported in 2003 (1) MPWN 34, Ajay Patodia vs. State of M.P. reported in 2003(2) MPWN 153, Jugal Kishore vs. State of M.P. reported in 2005 (1) Crimes 117, Madiya vs. State of M.P. reported in 2006 (1) M.P.L.J. 583, Paramjeet vs. State of M.P. reported in 2007 Cr.L.J. 3343, Prakash Chand vs. State of M.P. reported in 2007(1) MPWN 20, Devendra Singh vs. State of M.P., reported in 2007 (3) MPHT 247, Khayliram vs. State of M.P. reported in 2007 (5) MPHT 407, Sita vs. State of M.P. reported in 2008 (1) MPHT 92, Chaterbai vs. State of M.P. reported in 2010 (1) M.P.L.J. (Cri.) 690 and Gyan Singh vs. State of M.P. reported in 2010 (1) M.P.L.J. (Cri.) 767.

5. Per contra, it is submitted by the State Counsel that the statements of the witnesses have been recorded and they have specifically stated that the deceased had informed them that he has already repaid the entire loan amount to the present applicants but still they are pressurizing the deceased to pay additional money, as a result of which he was very upset. It is further submitted that the charge-sheet has already been fi