The Supreme Court on Friday said abetment involves mental process of instigating or intentionally aiding a person in doing a thing.
The top court’s judgement came while quashing criminal proceedings and a non-bailable warrant issued against a woman in a case of an alleged suicide under the SC/ST Act.
“Abetment involves mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing of a thing. Without positive act on the part of the accused to instigate or aid in committing suicide, no one can be convicted for offence under Section 306, IPC,” a bench of Justices R. Subhash Reddy and Hrishikesh Roy said.
The top court observed that to proceed against any person for the offence under Section 306, it requires an active or direct act which led the deceased see no option but to commit suicide and that the act must have been intended to push the deceased into such a position that he committed suicide.
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The bench noted that there is nothing on record to show that the petitioner was maintaining a relation with the deceased and further there is absolutely no material to allege she abetted suicide of the deceased within the meaning of Section 306.
The bench said: “Except the statement that the deceased was in relation with the appellant, there is no material at all to show that appellant was maintaining any relation with the deceased.”
The bench further said it would be travesty of justice to compel the appellant to face a criminal trial without any credible material whatsoever.
The Supreme Court’s judgment came on an appeal filed by a woman challenging the Allahabad High Court order, which dismissed her plea seeking to quash criminal proceedings and the NBW issued for offences under various sections of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and Section 306 of IPC.
In May 2018, an FIR was registered at TP Nagar Police Station in Meerut district on the complaint of a man alleging that his brother was called by the petitioner at her house wherein her parents and sister made casteist abuses and forcefully administered poison to him and consequently, his brother became unconscious.
The complainant claimed that his brother died at the hospital due to negligence.