Using Abusive Language and Calling husband impotent will not in itself constitute offence of Abetment to Suicide: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has on April 30, 2025 held that merely because the act of an accused is highly insulting to the deceased by using abusive language would not by itself constitute abetment of suicide as there should be evidence suggesting that the accused intended by such act to instigate the deceased to commit suicide.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih allowed a plea of the wife of a man and her family members for quashing the criminal proceedings initiated with regard to suicide of her husband on December 9, 2013 as the accused barged into the house of the deceased on November 10, 2013, abused him by calling him infertile and impotent and threatended to get him and his mother arrested in dowry harassment case.
The deceased Dinesh and Pushpakalashree, accused No. 7, got married on September 15, 2013. Both were well qualified as the husband was an engineer and the wife, an MBA.
Having heard the counsel for the parties and have gone through the pleadings especially the alleged suicide note authored by deceased Dinesh, the court noted that the primary reason as has been pointed out appears to be the marriage having not worked out between the two i.e. the deceased and his wife.
The court pointed out the incident which triggered the act of actual suicide according to the note, was when relatives of his wife, arrayed as accused and appellants here, barged into their house on November 10, 2013. They started abusing the deceased and his mother using filthy language. They were alleged to have manhandled them. Thereafter, the wife of the deceased having gone along with them to her parental home and while going out they shouted publicly that the deceased was impotent. Further, his wife had threatened him to publish on the internet his nude photographs taken by her. The wife and other again visited the house on November 11, 2013 to discuss about the incident, happened a day before.
What turns out primarily from the sequence of events, statements and the suicide note is that from November 11, 2013 until the actual date of suicide i.e. December 09, 2013 there has been no contact whatsoever either in person or by phone or any other means between the deceased or his relatives and his wife or any of the other accused which would indicate continuous harassment or torture or any sort of pressure at the hands of the accused appellants on the deceased, the bench found.
"Therefore, there is no proximity of any harassment or instigation prior to the incident of suicide having taken place. Otherwise also the contents of the FIR do not in itself indicate any active or direct act which can be said to have led the deceased to commit suicide leaving him no option but to push the deceased into a position that he committed suicide," the bench held.
From the suicide note, no abetment can be said to have been established that the accused instigated the deceased or there being any persistent cruelty or harassment which would make out an offence of abetment of suicide, the court concluded.
The bench said, merely on the basis of the allegations of harassment and that too a month ago with in between there being no contact of any sort on the part of the appellants, till the time of occurrence which can be said to have led or compelled the deceased to have committed suicide, the offence has not been made out.
"Mens rea cannot be presumed, but must be ostensibly present and visible, which is missing in the present case. It involves a mental process of instigating a person and without a positive act on the part of the appellants which can be said to either to instigate or aid in committing suicide, the ingredients of the offence cannot be said to have been present," the bench said.
The court pointed out Section 306 IPC requires a person having committed suicide as a first requirement but for abetment of such commission, which is essential, the ingredients must be found in Section 107 IPC.
The requirement of abetment under Section 107 IPC is instigation, secondly engagement by himself or with other person in any conspiracy for doing such thing or act or a legal omission in pursuance to that conspiracy and thirdly intentionally aids by any act or an illegal omission of doing that thing. In large number of judgments of this court, it stands established that the essential ingredients of the offense under Section 306 IPC are (i) the abetment; (ii) intention of the accused to aid and instigate or abet the deceased to commit suicide, the bench emphasised.
The court thus said these being the essential ingredients for the offence of abetment to suicide, and the said ingredients having not been fulfilled, further continuation of proceedings would not be sustainable.
The other evidence such as statements, sought to be relied upon by the prosecution, apart from the suicide note, does not in any manner advance the case of the prosecution, particularly when the foundation of the case is the suicide note itself, the court said.
With the very element of abetment conspicuously absent from the allegations made in the FIR which is primarily based upon the suicide note, the essential requirements for constituting an offence under Section 306 IPC remain unfulfilled, it found.
"As such, the continuation of the criminal proceedings initiated against the appellants would amount to an abuse of the process of law. The court cannot permit such proceedings to degenerate into instruments of harassment or unjust prosecution," the bench said.
The bench further said the court would not hesitate to exercise its extraordinary powers which are inherent to quash such proceedings when it comes to fore, and the court is satisfied that allowing the proceedings to continue would be an abuse of process of court or that the ends of the justice require that the proceedings ought to be quashed.
When offence under Section 306 itself is not being made out, continuance of the proceedings against the appellants cannot be permitted, the bench said, allowing the wife and others and setting aside impugned judgment by the Madras High Court of April 13, 2018.
Case Title: Shenbagavalli And Ors Vs The Inspector of Police, Kancheepuram District And Anr