No abetment case if a ‘fool’ commits suicide naming someone in note: HC

CHANDIGARH: A case of abetment to suicide is not made out if a person of ‘weak mentality’ names someone in his suicide note, but the investigation failed to establish ‘guilty mind’ of the accused, the Punjab and Haryana high court has ruled.

“The offence of abetment requires ‘mens rea’ (guilty mind). There must be intentional doing/aiding or goading the commission of suicide by another. Otherwise, even a mere casual remark, something said in routine and usual conversation will be wrongly construed or misunderstood as ‘abetment’,” the high court bench of justice PB Bajanthri said quashing an FIR against five persons including three lawyers and two employees of a Gurgaon firm in a suicide case registered in 2011.

One Iqbal Asif Khan, working as a manager, taxation with Xerox India Limited, committed suicide on March 23, 2011. In the suicide note, he had stated that he had been forced to commit suicide by four lawyers, AR Madhav Rao, RK Hasija, MP Devnath and Nishant Mishra ; and Inder Singh Bisht and Ganesh Prasad Sati, two employees of the firm.

As per the note, they were responsible for certain ‘misdeeds’ committed by Khan in drafting a petition for the firm, which would be financial loss to the firm. However, the firm had won the case.

“For the wrong decision taken by a coward, fool, idiot, a man of weak mentality, a man of frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide,” the court observed as it found that Khan had not specified what was the alleged misdeeds.

Investigation by police also did not find any wrongdoing after examining the petition as well as the affidavit filed in the case on behalf of firm.

The accused petitioners had argued Khan must be under stress and allegations levelled were vague in nature. The court observed that merely because a person has been so named in the suicide note one cannot immediately jump to the conclusion that he is an offender and abetted suicide and ‘attending circumstances’ have to be examined to find out whether the accused was responsible in some manner.

“The overall analysis is required to be examined with the following incidents like if a lover commits suicide due to love failure, if a student commits suicide because of his 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,” the court said.

If a student commits suicide because of his poor performance in the examination, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, examiner and the lawyer, respectively, cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide. HIGH COURT BENCH