Clearing the air on abetment provision

The Supreme Court has brought much-needed clarity on the provision of abetment of suicide, which is often misused, and also laid down norms for courts and police to follow in such cases. While overturning a 2017 Allahabad high court verdict, delivered in the case of an employee who died by suicide in 2006 after a meeting with his superiors where he felt harassed, the apex court held that there was no conclusive evidence to back the charge of abetment and said the act of suicide alone is insufficient to assume abetment. This may seem obvious but is far from how these cases are handled. When a person dies by suicide, distraught family members end up targeting either other family members or the dead person’s employers, and the police are usually only too willing to register a case. Harassment and a lengthy judicial process follow.

The Court has clearly said that a quarrel or exchange of words in personal relationship that results in a psychological condition and leads to death by suicide isn’t enough of a reason to invoke the abetment provision in suicide law. Similarly, in professional relationships, involving hierarchies set by office rules, a dispute or perceived harassment should be of an extreme level to justify the charge of abetment. In both cases, the mental and situational contexts of the suicide also have to be considered, the Court said. It also cautioned that “the persons against whom allegations have been levelled” should not be “unnecessarily harassed” or “put to trial just for the sake of prosecuting them”.

As the apex court said, police and judicial officers have to apply their minds and examine the evidence carefully before proceeding on these charges.

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