The central legal point established in the judgment is that for a charge of abetment under Section 306/34 of the IPC, there must be evidence of instigation, incitement, or intentional aid by the accused to commit suicide.

JUDGMENT :

S.K. Awasthi, J.

This petition preferred u/s. 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (hereinafter, for short, 'the Code') for quashment of FIR and charge-sheet of Crime No. 834/2016 registered at Police-Thana-Station Road, Ratlam for the offence punishable under Section 306/34 of the IPC.

2. The facts of the case are in brief that on 23/10/2016 at about 8:00 a.m. Dhruvlal (deceased) committed suicide by consuming some poisonous substance. On receiving the information regarding the incident the Merg No. 53/16 was registered by Police Station-Station Road District-Ratlam under Section 174 of the Cr.P.C. Dead-body of the deceased was sent for post-mortem. During investigation it was revealed that deceased borrowed Rs.28 Lacs from co-accused-Bheem Gadoliya, Bhanwar Gadoliya and Mahendra Kumar and the same was repaid by him by selling his agricultural land but despite that he was subjected to ill treated by the applicant and other co-accused persons and they demanded interest @ 20% on the aforesaid amount from him and they were registered cases under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act against him, due to which feeling harassed he committed suicide by consuming poisonous substance. Thereafter, applicant and co-accused persons were arrested. Statement of the witnesses were recorded and after completing the necessary formalities, charge-sheet has been filed against the applicant for the offence punishable under Section 306/34 of the IPC, which is pending before the Court of 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Ratlam in S.T. No. 79/2017.

3. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the applicant that the allegations made against the applicant, even if accepted in their entirety, do not make out a case u/s. 306 of the IPC. It is submitted that to constitute abetment within the meaning of Section 107 read with Section 306 of the IPC, there should be instigation, provocation, incitement, suggestion, persuasion or goading to commit suicide and that, the accused must have intended that the deceased commits suicide. Reliance in this regard has been placed on Sanju @ Sanjay Singh Sengar Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2002) AIR SC 1998 and Ramesh Kumar vs. State of Chhattisgarh, (2001) 9 SCC 618.

4. Per contra, it is submitted by the learned Public Prosecutor that prima-facie charge for offence under Section 306/34 of the IPC is made out against the applicant on the basis of material available in the charge-sheet, therefore, it cannot be said that learned trial Court has committed any legal or factual error in framing the charge for offence under Section 306/34 of the IPC.

5. Heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

6. Before adverting to the merits of the case it will be proper for this Court to first discuss the scope of consideration by this Court at the stage of framing of charges because it is in this context that the present petition is required to be adjudicated upon.

7. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Dilawar Balu Kurane vs. State of Maharashtra, (2002) 2 SCC 135, has laid down the scope for consideration in the following manner:-

"12. Now the next question is whether a prima facie case has been made out against the appellant. In exercising powers under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the settled position of law is that the Judge while considering the question of framing the charges under the said section has the undoubted power to sift and weigh the evidence for the limited purpose of finding out whether or not a prima facie case against the accused has been made out; where the materials placed before the court disclose grave suspicion against the accused which has not been properly explained the court will be fully justified in framing a charge and proceeding with the trial; by and large if two views are equally possible and the judge is satisfied that the evidence produced before him while giving rise to some suspicion but not grave suspicion against the accused, he will be