Chhattisgarh High Court: The appellant was acquitted of the charges under Section 306 IPC by a Single Judge Bench comprising of Ram Prasanna Sharma, J., holding that there was no live link between the act of the appellant and suicide of the deceased so as to convict the appellant under the section.
The appellant-husband was alleged to have abetted the suicide of the deceased-wife. The statement of witnesses pointed to the fact that the appellant had assaulted the deceased on one previous occasion; however the date of such incident was not clear.
The High Court perused Section 306 along with Section 107 of IPC and observed that the abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing a thing. Without a positive act on the part of accused to instigate or aid in committing suicide, conviction under Section 306 can not be sustained. In order to convict a person under Section 306, there has to be a clear mens rea to commit offence. It also requires an active act or direct act which leads deceased to commit suicide seeing no option and this act must have been intended to push deceased into such a position that he commits suicide. In the instant case, there was nothing on record as to what had happened on or prior to the date of incident which was unbearable for the deceased. Mens rea on the part of the appellant, requiring direct act and active act which led the deceased to commit suicide, was lacking. Some bitter experience during routine married life is natural and that was not sufficient to hold that since long back of the incident there was quarrel between the parties that is why the deceased took the extreme step. In the present case, there was no live link between the act of the appellant and the act of the deceased.
Accordingly, the appeal was allowed and the conviction and sentence of the appellant passed by the trial court was set aside. [Tulsiram v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2018 SCC OnLine Chh 413, dated 11-04-2018]
