‘No one responsible for suicide by person with frail mentality’

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has granted pre-arrest bail to a woman accused of abetting the suicide of a man who allegedly stalked her, saying that no one else could be held accountable for the decision made by a person of “weak or frail mentality” of terminating his life.

“If a lover dies by suicide due to love failure, if a student commits suicide because of poor performance in the examination, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide. For the wrong decision taken by a man of weak or frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide,” a bench of justice Amit Mahajan said in the April 16 order.

The court made the observation while hearing pleas filed by the woman and the deceased’s friend seeking pre-arrest bail in a case filed by deceased’s father under Indian Penal Code Section 306 (abetment of suicide).

In the FIR, the father alleged that the accused instigated his son’s suicide by saying he “did not have manhood...”, which was the reason for his failed relationship with the woman. It said that the deceased in the suicide note mentioned the name of the two accused saying he was ending his life because of them.

The woman represented through senior advocate Maninder Singh submitted that she had ended her relationship with the deceased a long time ago but was forced to talk to him due to constant harassment by the latter and his family. She also argued that she was implicated in a false case as the deceased had a tendency to commit suicide and had earlier attempted to do so. The deceased’s friend also represented through the same senior counsel argued that he, too, was implicated falsely as there was no iota of evidence against him.

The police represented by additional public prosecutor Utkarsh said the accused had not only committed the offence that was heinous, even their names were mentioned in the note. In the 10-page verdict, justice Mahajan while allowing the pleas noted that the deceased was of a sensitive nature and used to constantly threaten the woman with dying by suicide whenever she refused to talk to him. The suicide note, the court said, only expressed a “state of anguish of the deceased” towards the accused.

“It is correct that the deceased had written the name of the applicants in note, but... there is nothing mentioned, as to the nature of threats in the alleged suicide note written by deceased of such an alarming proportion so as to drive a ‘normal person’ to contemplate suicide. Prima facie, the alleged suicide note only expressed a state of anguish of the deceased towards the applicants, but it cannot be inferred that the applicants had any intention, that led the deceased to commit suicide,” the court noted as it also granted bail to the deceased’s friend.