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Showing contexts for: instigation to commit suicide in Rajitram Ramfere Kanojia vs State Of Gujarat on 24 April, 2024Matching Fragments
"Abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing of a thing. Without a positive act on the part of the accused to instigate or aid in committing suicide, conviction cannot be sustained. The intention of the legislature and the ratio of the cases decided by the Supreme Court is clear that in order to convict a person under Section 306 IPC there has to be a clear mens rea to commit the offence. It also requires an active act or direct act which led the deceased to commit suicide seeing no option and that act must have been intended to push the deceased into such a position that he committed suicide."
19. In the case of M. Arjunan Vs. State, Represented by its Inspector of Police4 , a two-Judge Bench of this Court has expounded the ingredients of Section 306 IPC in the following words:-
"The essential ingredients of the offence under Section 306 I.P.C. are: (i) the abetment; (ii) the intention of the accused to aid or instigate or abet the deceased to commit suicide. The act of the accused, however, insulting the deceased by using abusive language will not, by itself, constitute the abetment of suicide. There should be evidence capable of suggesting that the accused intended by such act to instigate the deceased to commit suicide. Unless the ingredients of instigation/abetment to commit suicide are satisfied, accused cannot be convicted under Section 306 I.P.C."
22. In the facts of the present case, clause secondly and thirdly in Section 107 will have no application. Now, the question remains is as to whether the appellant instigated the deceased to commit suicide. To attract the first clause, there must be instigation in some form on the part of the accused to cause the deceased to commit suicide. Hence, the accused must have 'mens rea' to instigate the deceased to commit suicide. The act of instigation must be of such intensity that it is intended to push the deceased to such a position under which he or she has no choice but to commit suicide. Such instigation must be in close proximity to the act of committing suicide. In the present case, taking the contents of the NEUTRAL CITATION R/CR.A/664/2002 CAV JUDGMENT DATED: 24/04/2024 undefined FIR and the statements of the witnesses as correct, it is impossible to conclude that the appellant instigated the deceased to commit suicide just because of not conceiving a child by the deceased. By no stretch of the imagination, the alleged acts of the appellant can amount to instigation to commit suicide.
29. Having regard to the provisions of Section 107 and 306 of the Indian Penal Code and the principle laid down by the Supreme Court in various decisions referred to in the case of Lalitbhai Vikramchand Parekh (supra) as well as other decisions as stated above, it is apparent that in a case under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, there should be correct mens rea to commit the offence under this section and there should be direct and active role by the accused, which led the deceased to commit the suicide, that is to say that there cannot be same evidence of "instigation" or "initial assistance" by the accused to commit suicide by the victim/deceased.