GANGULA MOHAN REDDYversusSTATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

                     [2010] 1 S.C.R. 7

                GANGULA MOHAN REDDY                              A
                              v.
              STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH
            (Criminal Appeal No. 1301 of 2002)
                     JANUARY 5, 2010
                                                                 B
    [DALVEER BHANDARI AND A. K. PATNAIK, JJ.]

    Penal Code, 1860:

     ss. 306 and 107 - Abetment to suicide - HELD:               c
Abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person
or intentionally aiding a person in doing a thing - There has
to be a clear mens rea to commit the offence - Without a
positive act on the parl of the accused to instigate or aid in
committing suicide, conviction cannot be sustained.
                                                                 D
     The appellant was convicted by the trial court uls 306
IPC on the allegation that his farm labour (deceased)
committed suicide because of the harassment meted out
to him by the appellant. The prosecution case was that
the appellant, two days prior to the incident, leveled an        E
allegation of theft of ornaments against the deceased;
that the appellant had also demanded from the deceased
Rs.70001- which was given to him as advance at the time
when he was kept in employment. The conviction was
affirmed by the High Court.                                      F

    In the instant appeal filed by the accused, it was
contended for the appellant that the conviction of the
appellant was unsustainable as no ingredients of offence
punishable uls 306 IPC were made out.
                                                                 G
    Allowing the appeal, the Court

    HELD: 1.1. Abetment involves a mental process of

                              7                                  H
    8      SUPREME COURT REPORTS              [2010) 1 S.C.R.

A 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. [Para 20) (14-G]

       1.2. The intention of the Legislature and the ratio of
8
  the cases decided by this court is clear that in order to
  convict a person u/s 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
C to push the deceased into such a position that he
  committed suicide. [Para 21) [14-H; 15-A-B]

       1.3. In the instant case, the deceased was
  undoubtedly hyper sensitive to ordinary petulance,
o discord and differences which happen in day-to-day life.
  Human sensitivity of each individual differs from the
  other. Different people behave differently in the same
  situation. In the light of the provisions of law and the
  settled legal positions crystallized by a series of
E judgments of this Court, the conviction of the appellant
  cannot be sustained. [Para 18 and 22] [14-D; 15-8-C]
       Mahendra Singh & Another v. State of MP. 1995 Supp.
  (3) SCC 731; Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh (2001)
  9 SCC 618; State of West Bengal v. Ori/al Jaiswal & Another.
F (1994) 1 SCC 73; and Chitresh Kumar Chopra v. State (Govt.
  of NCT of Delhi) 2009 (11) SCALE 24, relied on.
                       Case Law Reference:
        1995 Supp. (3) sec 731 relied on            para 13
G
        20011 9 sec 618           relied on         para 15
        (1994) 1 sec 73           relied on         para 16
        2009 (11) SCALE 24        relied on         para 19
H
  GANGULA MOHAN REDDY v. STATE OF ANDHRA                      9
                PRADESH

    CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal               A
No. 1301 of 2002.

    From the Judgment & Order dated 20.3.2002 of the High
Court of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad in Criminal Appeal No.
1039 of 1996.
                                                                   B
     D. Ramakrishna Reddy (for T. Anamika) for the Appellant.

    I. Venkatanarayana, Manoj Saxena, Rajnish Singh, Bachita
Barua (for T.V. George) for the Respondent.

     The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
                                                                   c
     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      D
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.                                                            E

      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    F
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.
                                                                   G
    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        H
    10      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                 [2010] 1 S.C.R.


A (servant) deceased Ramulu by levelling tt e 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.
B
         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
C 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
D him on which his son had teturned 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/-
E 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
F of the deceased as P.W.2. She also corroborated the
  statement of 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
G 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
H be profitable to set out section 306 of the Code:
  GANGULA MOHAN REDDY v. STATE OF ANDHRA                        11
      PRADESH [DALVEER BHANDARI, J.]
     "306. Abetment of suicide - If any person commits suicide,       A
     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."
                                                                      B
     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            C
object of killing himself.

     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        D
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.          E

     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,        F .
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         G
IPC.

    11. 'Abetment' has been defined under section 107 of the
Code. We deem it appropriate to reproduce section 107, which
reads as under:                                                       H
    12      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                    [201 O] 1 S.C.R.

A        "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
B              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

c         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:
D        "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."

E       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) sec 731. In the case of
    Mahendra Singh, the allegations levelled are as under:-

         "My mother-in-law and husband and sister-in-law
F        (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."
G
       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
H section 306 IPC merely on the basis of aforementioned
 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY v. STATE OF ANDHRA                      13
     PRADESH [DALVEER BHANDARI, J.]
allegation of harassment of the deceased is unsustainable in        A
law.

     15. Learned counsel also placed reliance on another
judgment of this court in Ramesh Kumar v. State of
Chf}attisgarh (2001) 9 SCC 618. A three-Judge bench of this
                                                                 8
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 paragraph 20 has
examined different shades of the meaning of "instigation'. Para C
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   D
    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          E
    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            F
    consequences to actually follow cannot be said to be
    instigation."

       16. In State of West Bengal v. Ori/al Jaiswal & Another.
(1994) 1 SCC 73, this Court has cautioned that the Court
should be extremely careful in assessing the facts and              G
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       H
    14      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                  [2010) 1 S.C.R.


A difference in domestic life quite common to the society to which
  the victim belonged and such petulance, 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
B accused charged of abetting the offence of suicide should be
  found guilty.

       17. The Court in Ramesh Kumar's case came to the
  conclusion that there is no evidence and material available on
  record wherefrom an inference of the accused-appellant having
C 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
D 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
E 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, incite
  or encourage the doing of an act by the latter. Each person's
  suicidability pattern is different from the others. Each person
F 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.

G        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 accU&ecJ to instigate
    or aid in committing suicide, convictioo canl\Ot be austained.

         21. The intention of the Legislature and the ratio of the
H
 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY v. STATE OF ANDHRA                          15
     PRADESH [DALVEER BHANDARI, J.]
cases decided by this court is clear that in order to convict a        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.                        B

     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. Consequently,
the appeal filed by the appellant is allowed and disposed of.
                                                                       c
     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.
                                                                       D
     24. Consequently, the appeal filed by the appellant is
allowed.

R.P.                                           ' Appeal allowed.