Mere refusal to repay borrowed money not abetment of suicide under Section 306 RPC: High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh

The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has recently ruled that mere refusal to repay borrowed money cannot in any way be considered an act which falls within the scope of abetment of suicide criminalised under Section 306 of Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) [Gauri Devi V/s State of J&K]..Single-judge Justice Rajnesh Oswal referred to the definition of abetment under Section 107 RPC to hold that one can be charged for the offence of abetment only when he instigates any person to do an act or intentionally or engages with one or more other person in conspiracy for the doing of that thing or intentionally aids, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of that thing."Though different persons may react or respond to a particular situation differently but this court is of the considered opinion that mere refusal to repay the loan cannot in any way can be considered to be an act of abetment to drive the deceased to commit suicide," the Court held. The order was passed on a plea by one Gauri Devi challenging the first information report (FIR) registered against her in 2010 for abetment of suicide of her son-in-law, Ghan Shyam. Devi had borrowed money from Shyam. Shyam himself had borrowed money from few persons who used to harass him. He, therefore, demanded Devi to return the money he had given him. It led to verbal altercation between the two and the deceased said that if the petitioner does not clear her dues towards him, he would kill himself.On this, the petitioner told that she had no money to return to the Ghan Shyam and this prompted Ghan Shyam to take the extreme step by inflicting injury with a knife in the chest.FIR was registered against Devi at Police Station Nowabad, Jammu for offence under Section 306 of the RPC.The Additional Sessions Judge, Jammu by an order dated March 12, 2011 framed charges against the accused-petitioner for the offence..The petitioner then moved the High Court invoking its inherent powers under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing the case..She submitted that there is not even an iota of evidence on record that the petitioner at any point of time abetted the commission of suicide by the deceased and the proceedings pending before the learned trial court were an abuse of process of law. .The Court after examining the allegations and material on record said that deceased had died by suicide when the petitioner refused to return an amount of Rs. 73,000 which she had taken from him.Whether the same would constitute an offence under Section 306 is the question to be decided, the Court said.In this regard, the Court placed reliance on the 2010 Supreme Court judgment in Madan Mohan Singh v. State of Gujarat and another. In that case, the accused was a superior officer had rebuked another officer lower in rank to him and threatened to suspend him for failure to comply with certain directions. The junior then died by suicide leaving behind a suicide note pinning the blame on the superior officer. The superior officer came to be charged for Section 306 offence but the same was quashed by the top court.Reliance was also placed on Swamy Prahaladdas v. State of M.P. & Anr and Vaijnath Kondiba Khandke v. State of Maharashtra and another.In the light of the judgments above, the Court held that in order to constitute an offence of abetment, the act committed by the accused must be of such nature so that the deceased must be left with no other option but to take extreme step of ending his life. Applying the same to the present case, the Court held that ingredients under Section 306 are not made out and quashed the case..[Read Judgment]