Narendra Chandrakar vs State Of Chhattisgarh

This revision has been preferred by the Applicant being aggrieved with order dated 21.10.2021 passed by learned Seventh Additional Sessions Judge, Durg (C.G.) in Sessions Trial No. 147/2021, whereby the charge under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code has been framed against the Applicant.

Facts of the case are that the Applicant is an ex-Sarpanch of Gram Panchayat Ameri, Tehsil-Patan, District Durg, co-accused Chinta Ram was working as Panchayat Secretary and another co-accused Raju Lehri was working as Rojgar Sahayak of said Gram Panchayat. On 24.04.2020, deceased Ashish Chandrakar committed suicide by hanging himself and left one suicidal note, wherein, he wrote that some payment of beneficiaries has not been paid in tenure of the Applicant and co-accused Chinta Ram got his signature on some false paper on the basis of which Chinta Ram threatening to implicate him, that is why he is committing suicide. On the basis of above, FIR bearing crime No.130/2020 was registered against the Applicant and other co-accused Chintaram Yadav and Raju Lahri for the offence punishable under Section 306/34 of the Indian Penal Code.

After completion of the investigation, charge-sheet has been filed before the Court below and thereafter the case was committed to the trial Court for trial.

The Trial Court had framed the charge under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code against the Applicant. Hence, this revision has been preferred by the Applicant.

Learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the Applicant submits that from perusal of entire charge-sheet, it is clear that none of the witnesses have stated against the Applicant that he abated the deceased for commission suicide. There is also no direct or indirect evidence available on record against the Applicant to involve him in commission of the alleged offence. On the basis of same evidence available on record, the Court below had already acquitted co-accused Chinta Ram and Raju Lehri from the offence punishable under Section 306 of the IPC. From perusal of entire charge-sheet, it is not shown anywhere that the Applicant had played any active or inactive role to facilitate the deceased for commission of suicide. There is also no material available on record which prima facie show that the Applicant in any manner instigated the deceased or made any conspiracy or aid anything as defined under Section 107 of the IPC, therefore, the offence punishable under Section 306 of the IPC is not made out against the Applicant.

On the other hand learned State Counsel submitted that there is sufficient evidence available on record which prima facie shows that the Appellant has committed the alleged offence as such there is no illegality found in the impugned order framing charges against the Applicant.

I have heard learned counsel appearing on behalf of the parties and perused the record and other material available with utmost circumspection.

The question in the present case is whether on considering the entire available material to be correct a prima facie case for alleged commission of offence under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code is made out against the Applicant or not?

At this juncture, it is appropriate to look into the provisions of Sections 306 and 107 of the Indian Penal Code, which run thus:

“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 extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.

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 place in pursuance of that conspiracy, and in order to the doing of that thing; or

Thirdly.— Intentionally aids, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of that thing.

Explanation 1.—A person who, by wilful misrepresentation, or by wilful concealment of a material fact which he is bound to disclose, voluntarily causes or procures, or attempts to cause or procure, a thing to be done, is said to instigate the doing of that thing.

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.”

Section 109 of the Indian Penal Code provides for punishment for abetment, which runs as follows:

“109. Punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment.— Whoever abets any offence shall, if the act abetted is committed in consequence of the abetment, and no express provision is made by this Code for the punishment of such abetment, be punished with the punishment provided for the offence.

Explanation.—An act or offence is said to be committed in consequence of abetment, when it is committed in consequence of the instigation, or in pursuance of the conspiracy, or with the aid which constitutes the abetment.”

As per the definition given in Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code, an abetment is constituted by any one of the following three ingredients:

“(i) instigating a person for doing of a thing, or

(ii) engaging in a conspiracy for the doing of that thing, or

(iii) intentionally aiding the doing of that thing.”

A person is said to “instigate” another to an act, when he actively suggests or stimulates him to the act by any means of language direct or indirect whether it takes the form of express solicitation or of hints, insinuation or encouragement. The word “instigate” means to goad, urge forward, provoke, incite or encourage to do an act.

As Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code makes abetment of commission of suicide punishable, therefore, for making liable for an offence punishable under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, it is the duty of the prosecution to establish that such person has abetted the commission of suicide and for the purpose of determining the act of the accused, it is necessary to see that his act must fall in any of the three ingredients as enumerated under Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code and, therefore, it is necessary to prove that the said accused has instigated the person to commit suicide or must have engaged with one or more persons in any conspiracy for seeking that the deceased commits suicide or he must intentionally aid by any act or illegal commission of the suicide by the deceased.

In (2001) 9 SCC 618 (Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh), it has been observed by the Supreme Court 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.

In State of W.B. v. Orilal Jaiswal, (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 trial for the purpose of finding whether the cruelty meted out to the victim had in fact induced her to end her life by committing suicide. If it transpires to the court that a victim committing suicide was hypersensitive to ordinary petulance, discord and differences in domestic life quite common to the society to which the victim belonged and such petulance, discord and differences 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.”

In 2010 CRI. L. J. 2010 (Gangula Mohan Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, the Supreme Court has observed as under:

“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 mensrea to commit the offence. It also 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 committed suicide.”

In 2015 AIR SCW 4814 (State of Kerala v. S. Unnikrishnan Nair), the Supreme Court has observed as under:

“13. As we find from the narration of facts and the material brought on record in the case at hand, it is the suicide note which forms the fulcrum of the allegations and for proper appreciation of the same, we have reproduced it hereinbefore. On a plain reading of the same, it is difficult to hold that there has been any abetment by the respondents. The note, except saying that the respondents compelled him to do everything and cheated him and put him in deep trouble, contains nothing else. The respondents were inferior in rank and it is surprising that such a thing could happen. That apart, the allegation is really vague. It also baffles reason, for the department had made him the head of the investigating team and the High Court had reposed complete faith in him and granted him the liberty to move the court, in such a situation, there was no warrant to feel cheated and to be put in trouble by the officers belonging to the lower rank. That apart, he has also put the blame on the Chief Judicial Magistrate by stating that he had put pressure on him. He has also made the allegation against the Advocate.

Coming to the case at hand, as we have stated earlier, the suicide note really does not state about any continuous conduct of harassment and, in any case, the facts and circumstances are quite different. In such a situation, we are disposed to think that the High Court is justified in quashing the proceeding, for it is an accepted position in law that where no prima facie case is made out against the accused, then the High Court is obliged in law to exercise the jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code and quash the proceedings. [See V.P. Shrivastava v. Indian Explosives Limited and others, (2010) 10 SCC 361]”

In (2019) 3 Supreme Court Cases 315 (M. Arjunan v. State) the Supreme Court has observed as under:

“7. The essential ingredients of the offence under Section 306 IPC are : (i) the abetment; (ii) the intention of the accused to aid or instigate or abet the deceased to commit suicide. The act of the accused, however, insulting the deceased by using abusive language will not, by itself, constitute the abetment of suicide. There should be evidence capable of suggesting that the accused intended by such act to instigate the deceased to commit suicide. Unless the ingredients of instigation/abetment to commit suicide are satisfied the accused cannot be convicted under Section 306 IPC."

In (2017) 1 Supreme Court Cases 433 (Gurcharan Singh v. State of Punjab) the Supreme Court has observed as under:

“21. It is thus manifest that the offence punishable is one of abetment of the commission of suicide by any person, predicating existence of a live link or nexus between the two, abetment being the propelling causative factor. The basic ingredients of this provision are suicidal death and the abetment thereof. To constitute abetment, the intention and involvement of the accused to aid or instigate the commission of suicide is imperative. Any severance or absence of any of these constituents would militate against this indictment. Remoteness of the culpable acts or omissions rooted in the intention of the accused to actualise the suicide would fall short as well of the offence of abetment essential to attract the punitive mandate of Section 306 IPC. Contiguity, continuity, culpability and complicity of the indictable acts or omission are the concomitant indices of abetment. Section 306 IPC, thus criminalises the sustained incitement for suicide.”

In the light of aforesaid enunciation of law, the facts of the present case are to be examined.

It is not in dispute that the deceased had committed suicide on 24.04.2020 and was holding a post of Sarpanch of the concerned village. There is also no dispute that at the earlier point of time, the Applicant herein was holding the post of Sarpanch and co-accused Chinta Ram and Raju Lehri were holding the posts of Panchayat Secretary and Rojgar Sahayak respectively of the concerned village.

The entire case of prosecution is based upon the suicidal note allegedly written by the deceased which reads as under:-

In the suicidal note, the deceased had mentioned the name of Panchayat Secretary Chinta Yadav and also written the name of Assistant Secretary Raju Lal Lehri. It was mentioned by him that Panchayat Secretary Chinta Ram lied to him and obtained signatures in the papers of septic beneficiaries. It was further mentioned by him in the suicidal note that Raju Lehri had not given the correct information to the deceased regarding the fraudulent and along with the secretary, he tried to trap him. It was further mentioned in the suicidal note that Former Sarpanch Narendra Chandrakar is creating pressure to repay the owed money to the shopkeepers during his tenure failing which, he was threatened to implicate in the false case.

On reading the suicidal note, it is seen that the allegations are levelled only upon three persons. The main allegation has been levelled upon Chinta Ram who has already been discharged by the Trial Court. The papers on which Chinta Ram taken signature of the deceased have also not been produced by the prosecution. When the deceased was alive, there is no evidence that he has narrated about the fraud to anyone. How much money is left to be paid by which shops, on this point, no evidence has been collected by the prosecution. Statements of any of the shopkeepers have also not been recorded by the prosecution. How the Appellant pressurized the deceased to deposit the outstanding money of the shopkeepers, this fact has also not come in the evidence.

Looking to the entire evidence collected by the prosecution, in my considered view, any of the ingredients of Section 107 of the IPC is not available in the instant case and no prima facie case for framing of a charge under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code is made out against the Applicant as there is no proximity or nexus between the conduct and behaviour of the Applicant with that of the suicide committed by the deceased.

Consequently, the revision is allowed. The impugned order dated 21.10.2021 framing charge against the Applicant under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code is set aside and the Applicant is accordingly discharged.

Record of the Court below be sent back along with a copy of this order forthwith for information and necessary compliance.