A view of Delhi High Court
| Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
The Delhi High Court has observed that a person cannot be held accountable for abetting the suicide of a partner who ends life due to “love failure”.
“For the wrong decision taken by a man of weak or frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide,” Justice Amit Mahajan remarked, while granting pre-arrest bail to two persons.
“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,” the judge added.
The court’s order on Tuesday (April 16) came while granting anticipatory bail to two persons, a woman and her male friend, who are facing charges of allegedly instigating the man to commit suicide in 2023.
The father of the deceased had filed a complaint with the police. The complaint stated that the woman was in a romantic relationship with the deceased but had told him that she was marrying her friend.
A suicide note was found in which the deceased had said that he was committing suicide because of the woman and the friend.
Relying on WhatsApp chats, the High Court said that it appeared that the deceased had constantly threatened that he would commit suicide whenever the woman refused to talk to him.
“It is correct that the deceased had written the names in the suicide note, but, in the opinion of this court, there is nothing mentioned, as to the nature of threats in the alleged suicide note written by deceased of such an alarming proportion so as to drive a ‘normal person’ to contemplate suicide,” the High Court said.
The judge opined that the alleged suicide note “only expressed a state of anguish of the deceased towards the [anticipatory bail] applicants, but it cannot be inferred that the applicants had any intention, that led the deceased to commit suicide”.
The High Court, however, ordered the bail applicants to cooperate with the investigation as and when directed by the investigating officer.
Those in distress or with suicidal tendencies may contact Tele MANAS at 14416 and 1800-891-4416, or iCALL at 9152987821.