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The Supreme Court granted a verdict stating that a person cannot be convicted merely based on the allegations levelled against him. It should be proved that he had an active role to play in the commission of the offence or abetting/facilitating the commission of the offence under 306 of the Indian Penal Code. The High Court had delivered a verdict against the accused, and the same caused the accused to approach the Hon’ble Bench of the Supreme Court.
The SC reiterated that the accused must have performed some action in proximity to the time of suicide committed by the victim, and the action must be of such nature which aided or instigated the commission of the suicide. The Hon’ble bench of the Apex Court of India comprising Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice MR Shah perused the appeal filed by the accused who was declared guilty of abetting the suicide of his brother in law, Arvind. The latter had stated on his suicide note that his in-laws including the accused demanded dowry, and has been harassing him. Due to the inability to withstand the harassment, Arvind held his in-laws including the accused responsible for his death.
The Hon’ble bench also stated that the words spoken in anger or omitted without any intention could not be said as instigation. There was another ground which favoured the victim’s claim. The accused had slapped the victim in a panchayat which was conducted to solve the dispute on dowry demand. The Court, however, was not satisfied with the contention based on the slapping incident. Hence, the Court said that there is no proximity between the slapping incident and the suicide; and further, the slapping incident cannot be a sole ground to hold the accused guilty of the offence under Section 306 of the IPC.
The Court concluded declaring that it cannot hold the accused guilty of the offence alleged to have been committed by him, because there was neither provocation nor encouragement by the accused to instigate the victim to commit suicide.
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