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4 On finding that the deceased was not opening his room on 6 December 2016, a ladder was used by the complainant to access the window of the deceased’s room, with the help of the Manager of the lodge. The deceased was found to be in “sleeping mode”. The Maddur Police Station was informed and when the door of his room was opened at 18:00 hours, the deceased was found to have died. On a teapoy next to the cot, a bottle of liquor, poison and a suicide note written by the deceased were found. The suicide note was uploaded by the deceased on his Facebook account through his mobile. The complaint narrates that the suicide note has referred to the illegal activities of the accused in amassing wealth in excess of Rs. 100 crores, converting black money into white and transferring funds from the bank account of the deceased through his mobile to the accounts of the relatives of the accused. The complaint alleged that the accused had threatened the deceased with death and harassed him as a result of which the deceased, having suffered mental stress, committed suicide by consuming poison. 5 The FIR was registered at 20:00 hours on 6 December 2016. The second respondent-accused, an SLAO for Bengaluru City, and another driver of his car were named as accused. The suicide note recorded by the deceased allegedly in his own handwriting contains a detailed narration of the properties alleged to have been illegally acquired by the second respondent. Besides detailing the properties which were acquired by the accused in paragraphs 1 to 13, the suicide note refers to:

(ii) The suicide note was submitted to the Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis but the High Court stayed the investigation while entertaining the proceedings under Section 482 CrPC and scuttled the investigation;
(iii) The allegations in the complaint and the suicide note contain a clear and detailed account of the harassment caused to the deceased at the behest of the second respondent-accused which on its face establishes a case of abetment of suicide; and

(i) The knowledge of the deceased in regard to the illegal activities of the accused;
(ii) The accused having used the deceased’s bank account for transfer of funds to his relatives;
(iii) The deceased having been threatened by the accused and by his “house car driver” with death; and
(iv) The recovery of the suicide note which was also uploaded on the Facebook account of the deceased;

The suicide note in turn provides a detailed account of

“12. […] It is also to be borne in mind that in cases of alleged abetment of suicide there must be proof of direct or indirect acts of incitement to the commission of suicide. Merely on the allegation of harassment without there being any positive action proximate to the time of occurrence on the part of the accused which led or compelled the person to commit suicide, conviction in terms of Section 306 IPC is not sustainable.” (See also in this context the judgments in Praveen Pradhan v. State of Uttaranchal12, Vaijnath Kondiba Khandke v. State of Maharashtra 13, M. Arjunan v. The State (Represented By Its Inspector of Police)14, Ude Singh v. State of Haryana 15, Rajesh @ Sarkari v. The State of Haryana 16 and Gurcharan Singh v. The State of Punjab 17. These decisions have been recently referred to in the judgment of this Court in Arnab Manoranjan Goswami v. State of Maharashtra 18). 25 While adjudicating on an application under Section 482 CrPC, the High Court in the present case travelled far away from the parameters for the exercise of the jurisdiction. Essentially, the task before the High Court was to determine whether the allegations made in the first information report or the complaint, even if they are (2010) 1 SCC 707 (2012) 9 SCC 734 (2018) 7 SCC 781 (2019) 3 SCC 315 (2019) 17 SCC 301 (2020) 15 SCC 359 (2020) 10 SCC 200 (2021) 2 SCC 427 taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety did or did not prima facie constitute an offence or make out a case against the accused. 26 Instead of applying this settled principle, the High Court has proceeded to analyze from its own perspective the veracity of the allegations. It must be emphasized that this is not a case where the High Court has arrived at a conclusion that the allegations in the FIR or the complaint are so absurd and inherently improbable on the basis of which no prudent person could ever reach a just conclusion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. Nor is this a case where the criminal proceeding is manifestly mala fide or has been instituted with an ulterior motive of taking vengeance on the accused. On the contrary, the specific allegations in the FIR and in the complaint find due reflection in the suicide note and establish a prima facie case for abetment of suicide within the meaning of Sections 306 and 107 of the IPC. The entire judgment of the High Court consists of a litany of surmises and conjectures and such an exercise is beyond the domain of proceeding under section 482 of the CrPC. The High Court has proceeded to scrutinize what has been disclosed during the investigation, ignoring that the investigation had been stayed by an interim order of the High Court, during the pendency of the proceedings under section 482. 27 The High Court observed that a prima facie case for the commission of offence under Section 306 of the IPC is not made out since: i) the suicide note does not describe the specific threats; ii) details of the alleged demand of Rs. 8 lacs from the deceased by the respondent-accused are not set out in the suicide note; and iii) no material to corroborate the allegations detailed in the suicide note has been unearthed by the investigating agency. The High Court observed that since the deceased took considerable time to write a twelve page suicide note, “it would have been but natural for the author to set out the details”. The High Court has evidently travelled far beyond the limits of its inherent power under Section 482 CrPC since instead of determining whether on a perusal of the complaint, a prima facie case is made out, it has analysed the sufficiency of the evidence with reference to the suicide note and has commented upon and made strong observations on the suicide note itself. Paras 32,33,34 and 39 of the order of the High Court are extracted below: