Delhi High Court: The Bench of Sanjeev Sachdeva, J. discharged the petitioner-wife of the offence under Section 306 IPC for allegedly abetting suicide of her husband.
Petitioner was wife of the deceased who committed suicide in 2015. It was alleged that on 31-7-2015, petitioner had slapped the deceased in front of other family members. On 02-08-2015, the deceased attempted to commit suicide and expired on the next day. Alleged suicide note was also discovered from his bed. An FIR was registered as per which deceased committed suicide as he was upset about petitioner slapping him. According to the trial court, there was prima facie material against petitioner to frame a charged under Section 306. Petitioner impugned trial court’s order in the present petition.
Lohit Ganguly, Advocate for the petitioner submitted that the trial court failed to appreciate that the material did not suggest that petitioner instigated the deceased to commit suicide.
The High Court referred to Section 107 (abetment of a thing); and decisions in Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2001) 9 SCC 618 where Supreme Court laid down as to what conduct amounts to incitement or instigation; and Pawan Kumar v. State of H.P., (2017) 7 SCC 780 where expression “abetment” was elaborated upon. In the present case, Court did not find any material suggest that petitioner instigated, conspired or aided in the commission of suicide by the deceased. Mere act of wife slapping the husband would not instigate him to commit suicide by the deceased. Furthermore, the alleged suicide did not refer to any incident of slapping. In such circumstances, it was held that no charge under Section 306 could be made against the petitioner. Thus, the petition was allowed and the petitioner was discharged. [Shikha Gupta v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2019 SCC OnLine Del 6394, decided on 08-01-2019]
