Suicide note as basis for conviction: An attempt to decode what the Punjab & Haryana High Court held

The Punjab & Haryana High Court recently set aside a conviction for the offence of abetment to suicide while noting that a suicide note could not be believed unless circumstances suggest its truthfulness [Ravi Bharti v. State of Haryana]..In another convoluted judgment, the likes of which the Supreme Court has repeatedly frowned upon, Justice Sureshwar Thakur held,"The attributions of inculpations, in the purported dying declaration concerned, as purportedly authored by the deceased concerned, and, as appertaining to commission of suicide by the maker, and, appertaining to his becoming instigated by any purported potent instigatory actus-reus of the offender(s) concerned, cannot per-se be believed, unless all the surrounding circumstances, and, other evidence also suggests that such attribution, is truthful, and/or, is not ridden with any aura of falsity, otherwise not.".The appellant before the High Court was convicted for abetment to suicide under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The trial court had relied on a suicide note purportedly written by the deceased and sentenced him to five years' imprisonment. .The judge took note of the prosecution's submissions that the deceased took his own life after being instigated and goaded by the accused, and that the main plank of the prosecution's case rested on the suicide note.The Court said that the note did not prima facie constitute potent evidence of immense evidentiary vigor, unless its contents were "proven to be not authored by the deceased.".However, the reasoning given by Justice Thakur in paras 13-17 are difficult to decipher. For instance, on perusing the handwriting expert's report on the authenticity of the suicide note, he concluded,"The sequel of the above lack of contemporaneity inter-se the drawings of the purported admitted writings by the deceased hence with the purported drawings of the suicide note, by him, is that, much scope was left for changes or variations occurring in the purported admitted writings of the deceased, since his purportedly scribing them, especially rather from the one(s), as, become carried in the suicide note to which Ex.PW-9/B is assigned. If so, the apposite comparisons were neither efficacious nor become amenable for any reliance being placed thereons."While stating that the suicide note in this case did not have any evidentiary value, the order noted,"The apt sequel is that, Ex.PW-6/A to Ex.PW-6/C, did never embody thereins, rather the purported admitted writings of the deceased, with the consequent effect, that the apposite comparisons were completely frail, and, fragile, conspicously when even otherwise PW-20 has not spoken about the imperative factum of inter-se contemporaneity of the drawings of compared documents.".The appellant was represented by Advocates SS Dahiya and Bikram Chaudhary while the State was represented by Advocate Pradeep Prakash Chahar..Just yesterday, the Supreme Court remanded a matter to the Himachal Pradesh High Court after finding the judgment under challenge "incomprehensible." The High Court judgment, coincidentally, was also passed by Justice Sureshwar Thakur, before he was transferred to the Punjab & Haryana High Court in 2021.And this is not the first time the Supreme Court has sent back Justice Thakur's orders from whence they came..In January this year, a Bench of Justices KM Joseph and PS Narasimha had said that it might have to send a case back to the High Court with a direction to rewrite the judgment since the language employed in the judgment was incomprehensible. "Is this in Latin?" the Bench had quipped in that case.In August this year, the Supreme Court set aside a judgment passed by the same judge after finding that his verdict was "utterly incomprehensible". In an earlier hearing in that case, the apex court had noted,“The purpose of writing a judgment is to communicate the basis of the decision not only to the members of the Bar, who appear in the case and to others to whom it serves as a precedent but above all, to provide meaning to citizens who approach courts for pursuing their remedies under the law. Such orders of the High Court as in the present case do dis-service to the cause of ensuring accessible and understandable justice to citizens.".Court judgments should be in language which can be understood not only by lawyers but also citizens who approach courts: Supreme Court .[Read Order]

Suicide note as basis for conviction: An attempt to decode what the Punjab & Haryana High Court held

Ratna Singh

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