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Earlier this month, the Supreme Court said that police and the courts should avoid “unnecessary prosecutions” in cases of abetment of suicide stemming from the workplace.
The court was hearing the case of a salesman who died by suicide after alleged harassment from senior officers in his company. A Bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on October 3 quashed the case against the accused officers, overruling a judgment passed by the Allahabad High Court in March 2017.
What is “abetment” of suicide? Given that allegations of harassment at the workplace are not uncommon, how has the judiciary generally looked at such cases?
‘Abetment’ is defined under Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), which is the same as Section 45 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS).
A person abets the doing of a thing, if he (i) instigates any person to do that thing, or (ii) engages with one or more others in a conspiracy for the doing of that thing, or (iii) intentionally aids, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of that thing.
The punishment for abetment of suicide provided under Section 306 IPC (Section 108 BNS) can be up to 10 years imprisonment along with a fine.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s annual Crime in India report, the conviction rate in abetment of suicide (Section 306 IPC) cases was 17.5% in 2022, the year for which the latest data are available. It was 22.6%, 21.8%, 16.5%, and 15.6% in 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018 respectively.
Facts of case before SC
According to the FIR, the senior officers had “compelled” and “harassed” the salesman, Rajeev Jain, to opt for their company’s Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) in 2006. After Jain, who had worked at the company for more than 23 years, and several of his colleagues refused, “these persons (senior officers) threatened even through antisocial elements”, the FIR said.
On November 3, 2006, some of these employees met with the senior officers in Lucknow and were allegedly told that if they did not opt for VRS, they would be demoted from sales to merchandising. According to one employee, Jain was visibly tense and started crying during the meeting.
That evening, Jain apparently hanged himself. His brother Rajnish accused the senior officers of abetting the suicide. The Allahabad High Court refused a plea by the officers to quash the case, holding that there was a “direct link” between the meeting where the deceased was “humiliated and tortured”, and the suicide.
What the top court said
Relying on past decisions, the SC held that in abetment of suicide cases, there must be “direct and alarming encouragement/ incitement by the accused”. The court divided such cases into two categories based on the relationship of the deceased person with the accused — whether there are “sentimental ties or physical relations”, or if it is in an “official capacity”.
Where there are sentimental ties, the bar for proving abetment may be lower, the court said — “sometimes a normal quarrel or the hot exchange of words may result into immediate psychological imbalance…and it may give temptations to the person to commit suicide”.
“Official capacity” relationships — such as between an employer and an employee — are, on the other hand, managed through “law, rules, policies, and regulations”. In these cases, courts must avoid “unnecessary prosecutions”, and must see if there is evidence to show that the accused intended to cause the suicide, the top court said.
It is “wrong” to hold a full-fledged trial to determine if the accused had such an intention as “by and large the facts make things clear more particularly from the nature of the allegations itself”, the court said. Quashing the case, it said that holding further trial in Jain’s case “will be nothing but abuse of process of law”.
What courts have said earlier
In M Mohan v The State (2011), the SC set a high bar for proving abetment of suicide under Section 306 IPC, including specific intent — it “requires an active…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/ she committed suicide”.
In July 2023, the Karnataka HC refused to quash proceedings against three persons accused of abetting the suicide of an employee from the LGBT community. These persons — the deceased’s reporting manager, co-worker, and another manager — would allegedly harass and make fun of the employee on the basis of sexual orientation, which led to the suicide in June 2023.
The HC held that “there cannot be any particular parameter; yardstick; or a theorem for interference, particularly, in cases of abetment to suicide”. A person “tarnishing or destroying the self esteem of a hypersensitive person…would definitely become guilty of commission of abetment to suicide”, it said.
Also, “irritating or annoying the deceased by words or deeds, provoking them and driving them to the wall” would be ingredients of “abetment”, the HC said.
In Ude Singh v State of Haryana (2019), the SC too, had held that proving abetment of suicide would depend on the facts of the individual case. “There must be a proof of direct or indirect act(s) of incitement to the commission of suicide”, the court said; “if the accused by his acts and by his continuous course of conduct creates a situation which leads the deceased perceiving no other option except to commit suicide, the case may fall within the four corners of Section 306 IPC.”
