REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1301 of 2002

Gangula Mohan Reddy .. Appellant

Versus

State of Andhra Pradesh .. Respondent

J U D G M E N T

Dalveer Bhandari, J.

1. This appeal is directed against the judgment of the High  

Court  of  Judicature  of  Andhra  Pradesh  at  Hyderabad  in  

Criminal  Appeal  No.  1039  of  1996  dated  30.3.2002.   The  

appellant  was  convicted  by  the  Assistant  Sessions  Judge,  

Nagarkurnool under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (for  

short  ‘the  Code’)  and  sentenced  to  suffer  rigorous

imprisonment for 10 years and to pay a fine of Rs.10,000/-  

and in default to suffer simple imprisonment for six months.

2. The  appellant,  aggrieved  by  the  said  judgment  of  the  

learned Assistant  Sessions Judge filed an appeal  before the  

High  Court.   The  High  Court  upheld  the  judgment  of  the  

learned  Assistant  Sessions  Judge,  but  while  affirming  the  

conviction of the appellant under Section 306 of the Code, the  

sentence of rigorous imprisonment of 10 years was reduced to  

5  years.   The  appellant,  aggrieved  by  the  said  judgment,  

approached this Court.  This Court granted leave and released  

the appellant on bail.

3. The  brief  facts  which  are  relevant  to  dispose  of  this  

appeal are recapitulated as under:

According to the case of the prosecution, the appellant,  

who is  an agriculturist  had harassed his agriculture labour  

(servant) deceased Ramulu by levelling the allegation that he  

had committed theft of some gold ornaments two days prior to  

his  death.   It  was  also  alleged  that  the  appellant  had  

demanded Rs.7,000/- from the deceased  which was given in  

advance to him at the time when he was kept in employment.

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4. The  prosecution  further  alleged  that  the  deceased  

Ramulu could not bear the harassment meted out to him and  

he  committed  suicide  by  consuming  pesticides.   The  

prosecution in support of its case examined the father of the  

deceased  as  P.W.1  Urikonda  Jammanna  in  which  he  had  

stated that his son Ramulu was a farm servant and used to  

work at the house of the appellant.  He also stated that the  

appellant  gave  Rs.7,000/-  in  advance to  his  son.  PW1 also  

stated that about two years ago, the appellant had asked his  

son (Ramulu) that his wrist watch was missing from his house  

and harassed him on which his son had returned the watch to  

the appellant.   PW1 in his statement stated that the appellant  

also levelled the allegation that the gold ear-rings were also  

missing from his house and the same were stolen by Ramulu.  

PW1 also stated that the appellant also demanded the advance  

of Rs.7,000/- paid to Ramulu at the time of his employment.  

He further stated that Ramulu committed suicide because the  

appellant had levelled the allegation of theft of ornaments.

5. The prosecution also examined Balamma, the mother of  

the deceased as P.W.2.  She also corroborated the statement of  

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PW1 and gave same version of the incident in her testimony.  

On the basis of the testimonies of P.W.1 and P.W.2, the Trial  

Court convicted the appellant under Section 306 of the Code  

and  his  conviction  on  appeal  was  confirmed  by  the  High  

Court.

6. Learned  counsel  for  the  appellant  submitted  that  the  

conviction of the appellant is totally unsustainable because no  

ingredients of offence under section 306 of the Code can be  

made out in the facts and circumstances of this case.  It would  

be profitable to set out section 306 of the Code:

“306. Abetment  of  suicide  –  If  any  person  commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of  such suicide, shall be punished with imprisonment  of either description for a term which may extent to  ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

7. The  word  suicide  in  itself  is  nowhere  defined  in  the  

Indian Penal  Code,  however its  meaning and import  is  well  

known  and  requires  no  explanation.  ‘Sui’  means  ‘self’  and  

‘cide’  means ‘killing’,  thus implying an act  of  self-killing.  In  

short a person committing suicide must commit it by himself,  

irrespective of the means employed by him in achieving his  

object of killing himself.  

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8. Suicide by itself is not an offence under either English or  

Indian criminal  law,  though at  one  time it  was a  felony  in  

England.  In  England,  the  former  law  was  of  the  nature  of  

being  a  deterrent  to  people  as  it  provided  penalties  of  two  

types:

•  Degradation of corpse of deceased by burying it on  

the highway with a stake through its chest.

•  Forfeiture of property of deceased by the State.

9. This  penalty  was  later  distilled  down  to  merely  not  

providing a full Christian burial, unless the deceased could be  

proved to be of unsound mind. However, currently there is no  

punishment for suicide after the enactment of the Suicide Act,  

1961 which proclaims that the rule of law whereby it was a  

crime for a person to commit suicide has been abrogated.

10. In our country, while suicide in itself is not an offence,  

considering that the successful offender is beyond the reach of  

law, attempt to suicide is an offence under section 309 of IPC.

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11. ‘Abetment’  has  been defined  under  section  107  of  the  

Code.  We deem it appropriate to reproduce section 107, which  

reads as under:

“107. Abetment of a thing – A person abets the  doing of a thing, who –

First –  Instigates any person to do that thing; or

Secondly – Engages with one or more other person  or  persons  in  any  conspiracy  for  the  doing of that thing,  if  an act or illegal  omission takes places in pursuance  of  that  conspiracy,  and  in  order  to  the  doing of that thing; or

Thirdly –   Intentionally aides, by any act or illegal  omission, the doing of that thing.”

12. Explanation  2  which  has  been  inserted  along  with  

section 107 reads as under:

“Explanation 2 – Whoever, either prior to or at the  time of the commission of an act, does anything in  order to facilitate the commission of that act, and  thereby facilitate the commission thereof, is said to  aid the doing of that act.”

13. Learned counsel for the appellant has placed reliance on  

a judgment of this Court in  Mahendra Singh & Another  v.  

State  of  M.P.  1995  Supp.  (3)  SCC  731.   In  the  case  of  

Mahendra Singh, the allegations levelled are as under:-

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“My mother-in-law and husband and sister-in-law  (husband’s elder brother’s wife) harassed me.  They  beat me and abused me.  My husband Mahendra  wants  to  marry  a  second  time.   He  has  illicit  connections with my sister-in-law.  Because of these  reasons  and  being  harassed  I  want  to  die  by  burning.”

14. The  court  on  aforementioned  allegations  came  to  a  

definite  conclusion  that  by  no  stretch  the  ingredients  of  

abetment  are  attracted  on  the  statement  of  the  deceased.  

According  to  the  appellant,  the  conviction  of  the  appellant  

under section 306 IPC merely on the basis of aforementioned  

allegation of harassment of the deceased is unsustainable in  

law.

15. Learned  counsel  also  placed  reliance  on  another  

judgment  of  this  court  in  Ramesh  Kumar  v.  State  of  

Chhattisgarh  (2001) 9 SCC 618.   A three-Judge bench of  

this court had an occasion to deal with a case of a similar  

nature.   In  a  dispute  between  the  husband  and  wife,  the  

appellant husband uttered “you are free to do whatever you  

wish and go wherever you like”.  Thereafter, the wife of the  

appellant  Ramesh  Kumar  committed  suicide.  The  Court  in  

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paragraph 20 has examined different shades of the meaning of  

“instigation’.  Para 20 reads as under:

“20. Instigation is to goad, urge forward,  provoke,  incite  or  encourage  to  do "an act".  To  satisfy  the  requirement of instigation though it is not necessary  that actual words must be used to that effect.  or  what  constitutes  instigation must  necessarily  and  specifically be suggestive of the consequence. Yet a  reasonable certainty to incite the consequence must  be capable of being spelt out. the present one is not  a  case  where  the  accused  had  by  his  acts  or  omission  or  by  a  continued  course  of  conduct  created such circumstances that the deceased was  left with no other option except to commit suicide in  which case an instigation may have been inferred. A  word uttered in the fit of anger or emotion without  intending  the  consequences  to  actually  follow  cannot be said to be instigation.”

16. In State of West Bengal v. Orilal Jaiswal & Another.  

(1994)  1  SCC 73, this  Court  has  cautioned that  the  Court  

should  be  extremely  careful  in  assessing  the  facts  and  

circumstances of each case and the evidence adduced in the  

trail for the purpose of finding whether the cruelty meted out  

to  the  victim  had  in  fact  induced  her  to  end  the  life  by  

committing suicide.  If  it  appears to the Court  that a victim  

committing suicide was hypersensitive to ordinary petulance,  

discord and difference in domestic life  quite common to the  

society  to  which  the  victim  belonged  and  such  petulance,  

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discord and difference were not expected to induce a similarly  

circumstanced individual in a given society to commit suicide,  

the conscience of the Court should not be satisfied for basing  

a finding that the accused charged of abetting the offence of  

suicide should be found guilty.

17. The Court  in  the  instant  case  came to  the  conclusion  

that  there  is  no  evidence  and  material  available  on  record  

wherefrom  an  inference  of  the  accused-appellant  having  

abetted commission of suicide by Seema may necessarily be  

drawn.    

18. In the instant case, the deceased was undoubtedly hyper  

sensitive to ordinary petulance, discord and differences which  

happen in  our  day-to-day  life.    Human sensitivity  of  each  

individual  differs  from  the  other.   Different  people  behave  

differently in the same situation.

19. This court in  Chitresh Kumar Chopra v.  State (Govt.  

of NCT of Delhi) 2009 (11) SCALE 24 had an occasion to deal  

with  this  aspect  of  abetment.  The  court  dealt  with  the  

dictionary  meaning  of  the  word  “instigation”  and “goading”.  

The court opined that there should be intention to provoke,  

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incite or encourage the doing of an act by the latter.  Each  

person’s  suicidability  pattern  is  different  from  the  others.  

Each person has his own idea of self esteem and self respect.  

Therefore,  it  is  impossible  to  lay  down  any  straight-jacket  

formula  in  dealing  with  such  cases.   Each  case  has  to  be  

decided on the basis of its own facts and circumstances.

20. 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.

21. The intention of the Legislature and the ratio of the cases  

decided by this 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  

this act must have been intended to push the deceased into  

such a position that he committed suicide.

22. In the light of the provisions of law and the settled legal  

positions crystallized by a series of judgments of this Court,  

the  conviction  of  the  appellant  cannot  be  sustained.  

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Consequently, the appeal filed by the appellant is allowed and  

disposed of.

23. During  the  pendency  of  the  appeal,  the  appellant  was  

released on bail.  He is not required to surrender.  His bail  

bond  is  cancelled  and  he  is  set  at  liberty  forthwith,  if  not  

required in any other case.

24. Consequently,  the  appeal  filed  by  the  appellant  is  

allowed.

…….……….……………J. (Dalveer Bhandari)

………………………….. J.

(A. K. Patnaik) New Delhi; January 5, 2010.

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