10 Years After Pratyusha Banerjee's Death, Bombay HC Clears Rahul Raj Singh Of Abetment Charges

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday discharged actor-turned-producer Rahul Raj Singh in the decade-old case relating to the death of television actor Pratyusha Banerjee, finding that the material on record did not justify sending him to trial for abetment of suicide.

Justice Shivkumar Dige allowed Singh's plea after the sessions court had earlier refused to discharge him. The case dates back to 2016, when Banerjee died by suicide at her residence in Mumbai and the Mumbai Police registered an FIR against him within days.

According to the prosecution, the incident took place around 4 pm on April 1, 2016. Banerjee's mother learnt of it that evening and lodged a complaint on April 5, alleging that her daughter took the extreme step because of harassment by Singh. On the basis of her statement to the Bangur Nagar police, a case was registered under Sections 306, 323 and 506 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code, covering abetment of suicide, assault and criminal intimidation. Of the three, the abetment charge was the real bone of contention.

Appearing for Singh, senior counsel Aabad Ponda and advocate Shreyans Mithare questioned the haste with which the FIR was registered, especially when no suicide note, not even a handwritten one, had been found. They argued that pushing the case towards trial on such material would amount to an abuse of the process of law.

Ponda also submitted that the sessions judge who rejected the discharge plea had “committed gross error in considering that the material available in the chargesheet is enough to prima facie reflect or show the involvement of the Applicant in the present crime.”

Much of the defence rested on the last recorded conversation between the two. As argued, “the last conversation recorded between deceased and Accused demonstrates that he infact tried to convince her from not taking any drastic steps and expressed his love towards the deceased, which shows that there is no case of abetment.” The High Court relied heavily on this submission.

The defence also pointed to Singh's conduct on the day. His discharge plea said he “was the one who tried to save her life by giving her mouth-to-mouth respiration and by taking her immediately to the hospital”, a fact it said was reflected in the statement of a neighbour who was the first to see her.

At the heart of the matter lies a settled legal position. To attract the charge of abetment of suicide, there must be cogent, independent evidence of “actual instigation” by the accused, and courts have held that such instigation must be active. Section 107 of the IPC, which defines abetment, speaks of instigating a person or intentionally aiding the act.

In a 2010 ruling, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik held that to convict someone under Section 306, “there has to be a clear mens rea (clear intent) to commit the offence.” The bench added that abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing a thing.

Veteran criminal counsel Shrikant Bhat has said that “abetment connotes active instigation to commit the specific act of suicide.” Evidence, experts note, must go beyond a bare allegation that the death followed harassment by another person. At the same time, they say, police must still investigate every suicide to rule out foul play, without presuming an abetment angle.

Inputs from TOI