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Hon’ble Justices Indu Malhotra & R. Subhash Reddy of the Supreme Court passed a judgement in the matter of State of West Bengal v. Indrajit Kundu & Ors that Section 306 of IPC is not attracted merely because the deceased was called a “Call Girl”.
The accused boy and the deceased girl were in love relation. When they cameto the accused's house to inform the parent of the accused about their decision to marry each other, his parents refused to approve it and shouted at the girl by terming her a “call girl”. The girl, on the next day, committed suicide after leaving two suicide notes blaming the accused. She also stated in the note that the accused was a coward for not speaking up when she was insulted by his parents. The application filed by the accused seeking discharge was dismissed by the trial court. The High Court allowed the petition filed by the accused recording a finding that terming the deceased as a call-girl, there was no utterance which can be interpreted to be an act of instigating, goading or solicitation or insinuation, the deceased to commit suicide. The Judgement in Swamy Prahaladdas v. State of Madhya Pradesh was referred to by the High Court, wherein it was observed that similar utterance like, “to go and die” does not constitute an offence for abetment.
The court observed that there was no goading or solicitation or insinuation by any of the respondents to the victim to commit suicide. The bench referred to the judgement in Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh in which the court had considered the scope of Section 306 and the ingredient which are essential for abetment as set out in section 107 IPC It quoted the following observation made in the judgement that:
“Instigation is to goad, urge forward, provoke, incite or encourage to do ‘an act’. To satisfy the requirement of instigation though it is not necessary that actual words must be used to that effect or what constitutes instigation must necessarily and specifically be suggestive of the consequence. Yet a reasonable certainty to incite the consequence must be capable of being spelt out. The present one is not a case where the accused had by his acts or omission or by a continued course of conduct created such circumstances that the deceased was left with no other option except to commit suicide in which case instigation may have been inferred. A word uttered in the fit of anger or emotion without intending the consequences to follow cannot be said to be instigation.”
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