New Delhi: The Delhi High Court observed that if a “lover” dies by suicide due to “love failure”, then the woman cannot be held accountable for abetting the man’s suicide while granting pre-arrest bail to two persons in an abetment of suicide case.
The court emphasised that holding another person responsible for the decisions made by someone with a "weak and frail mentality" would be unjust.
A single-judge bench of Justice Amit Mahajan, in its April 16 order, held, "If a lover commits suicide due to love failure, if a student commits suicide because of his poor performance in the examination, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide."
What was the case?
The court's order came while granting anticipatory bail to two persons, a woman and her friend, who are facing prosecution for allegedly instigating the man to commit suicide in 2023.
As per the complaint lodged by the man's father, the woman was previously involved in a romantic relationship with his son, while the other accused, represented by senior advocate Maninder Singh, was a mutual friend of theirs.
The applicants were accused of instigating the deceased by claiming that they had engaged in physical relations and planned to marry each other. The deceased was discovered in his room by his mother, with a suicide note nearby, stating that he was taking his own life because of the two applicants.
Here's what court said
The high court acknowledged that the deceased had named the applicants in his suicide note. However, it found nothing in the note to indicate that the threats were severe enough to compel a "normal person" to take their own life. "Prima facie, the alleged suicide note only expressed a state of anguish of the deceased towards the applicants, but it cannot be inferred that the applicants had any intention that led the deceased to commit suicide," it said.
The court noted that based on the WhatsApp chats submitted as evidence, it seemed that the deceased had a sensitive nature and constantly threatened the woman with suicide whenever she declined to talk with him.
The court granted the applicants anticipatory bail saying that the purpose of custodial interrogation is to aid the investigation and it is not punitive, adding that custodial interrogation of the two applicants was not required.
It directed the applicants to join the probe and cooperate in the investigation.
The State would be at liberty to file a plea seeking cancellation of the bail in case of any violation of bail conditions by them, the court said.
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