APHC010394172023 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH AT AMARAVATI (Special Original Jurisdiction) [3327] TUESDAY, THE TWENTY FIRST DAY OF JANUARY TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY FIVE PRESENT THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE K SREENIVASA REDDY CRIMINAL REVISION CASE NO: 680/2023 Between: Thamma Srinivasa Reddy and Others ...PETITIONER(S) A N D The State Of Andhra Pradesh ...RESPONDENT Counsel for the Petitioner(S): 1. RAJA REDDY KONETI Counsel for the Respondent: 1. PUBLIC PROSECUTOR (AP) The Court made the following: 2 O R D E R This Criminal Revision Case was filed by the petitioners/ accused Nos.1 to 3 praying the Court to set-aside the Order of taking cognizance of the offence punishable under Section 306 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for brevity „IPC‟) against the petitioners/ accused Nos.1 to 3 vide PRC No.19 of 2023 by the learned II Additional Junior Civil Judge, Tenali pursuant to FIR in Crime No.140 of 2022 of Tsunduru Police Station. 2. 2. The allegations that are leveled against the petitioners/ accused Nos.1 to 3 in the charge sheet, are as under: (a) One Gangisetty Rama Krishna (hereinafter referred to, as „the deceased‟) was running a Transport Company under the name and style of SRMT and later, sustained loss in the said business; that the deceased came out of that business and with an intention to start his own business, bought two transport vehicles and used to run them and he took a loan of Rs.7.00 lakhs from accused No.1, who is his childhood friend, for its repair, maintenance and for business; that accused No.1 stated to deceased that he would run out of 3 money for repairs and maintenance and made a proposal to him that he would bring four new vehicles in the name of accused No.2, who is relative of accused No.1 and would give two of the vehicles to the deceased; that the deceased took two Bolero vehicles vide bearing Nos.TS 09 UD 1972 and TS 09 UD 1973 and though the deceased paid a sum of Rs.3.00 lakhs towards its down payment, about sixteen months ago, the said two vehicles were registered in the name of accused No.2; that there occurred some delay in repayment of deceased entire loan of about Rs.7.00 lakhs to accused No.1 for his transport business, then, accused No.1 obtained signatures of L.W1/ Gangisetty Sujatha, L.W2/Gujjaralapudi Vinitha and the deceased on some white papers; that later the deceased went to L.W14/ Veeraboina Peddababu and expressed his inability to pay the installments to the said two vehicles and handed over them to him and took cash of Rs.2.00 lakhs and Rs.25,000/- towards driver charges and informed L.W14/Veeraboina Peddababu to pay the installments for the said two vehicles; that accused Nos.1 and 3 went to the house of L.W1/Gangisetty Sujatha, wife of the deceased, and demanded that deceased took loan of 4 Rs.18.00 lakhs from accused No.1 and threatened them to register their house in the name of accused No.3; that accused No.2 went to the house of the deceased and threatened him to given the two vehicles as they were registered in his name; that when the deceased questioned accused no.1 about the issue, accused No.1 threatened the deceased to register the house in the name of accused No.3, at first, and thereby, accused Nos.1 to 3 threatened the deceased to kill him; that on 25.11.2022 at about 11.00 a.m. accused Nos.1 to 3 made a phone call to the deceased and threatened him to come to Pattabhipuram Police Station; that the deceased share the repeated threatening of accused Nos.1 to 3 to L.W1/Gangisetty Sujatha, L.W2/Gujjaralapudi Vinitha, L.W3/Gujjaralapudi Harikrishna and L.W4/Venkamsetty Sambasivarao; that the deceased bought one Tagquit Grass pesticide poison, locked the house doors, took a video on 19.11.2022 narrating the entire incident and consumed the pesticide by mixing it with liquor and committed suicide; that the deceased was shifted to the Government Hospital, Tenali; that the police recorded the statement of the deceased and it was registered as a case in Crime No.140 of 2022 for the 5 offence punishable under Section 306 read with 34 IPC; that later, the deceased was shifted to the GGH, Guntur for better treatment; that on 03.12.2022 at about 9.40 a.m. the deceased was declared as dead. The petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 were alleged to have caused mental harassment to the deceased and they are responsible for the suicidal death of the deceased. After completion of investigation, charge sheet was filed as against the petitioners/ accused Nos.1 to 3. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 would submit that no offence is made out as against the petitioners/ accused Nos.1 to 3 muchless the offence under Section 306 read with 34 IPC. It is contended that the report does not show any positive act of abetment to attract the ingredients of Section 107 IPC and that the deceased was asked to come to Pattabhipuram Police Station at the behest of accused No.3. Learned counsel further contended that the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 have not done anything to abet the commission of suicide by the deceased and that, the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 never intentionally aided the deceased to commit suicide. Hence, continuation of criminal proceedings against the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 is 6 mere abuse of process of law. Thus, learned counsel prays to set-aside the order of taking cognizance of offence against the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3. Learned counsel placed reliance on the proposition of law laid down in CBI v. C.Shukla1, Gangula Mohan Reddy v. State of A.P.2, Smt. Nagawwa v. Veeranna Shivalingappa Konjalgi and other3 and the decision of a Coordinate Bench of this Court in V.Sankaraiah v. State of A.P.4 and prays to set-aside the orders of taking cognizance of offence as against the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 in the light of 1st guideline vide State of Haryana v. Bhajanlal5. 4. Learned Assistant Public Prosecutor for State would submit that basing on the statement of the wife of the deceased, case has been lodged as against the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3. It is stated that there are no grounds for setting-aside the order of taking cognizance of the offence as prima facie case is made out as against the petitioners and prays to dismiss the Criminal Revision Case. 1 AIR 1998 SC 1406. 2 AIR 2010 SC 327. 3 AIR 1976 SC 1947. 4 2002 (1) ALD (Crl.) 812 (AP). 5 1990 (2) SCALE 1066. 7 5. Heard Sri Rajareddy Koneti, learned counsel for the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 and learned Assistant Public Prosecutor representing the State/respondent. 6. A perusal of allegations leveled as against the petitioners/ accused Nos.1 to 3 goes to show that the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 were alleged to have committed an offence punishable under Section 306 read with 34 IPC. It is a well settled principle of law that when it is sought to set-aside the order of taking cognizance, the test to be applied is to see whether the uncontroverted allegations as made prima facie establish the offence alleged or not. 7. Section 306 IPC makes abetment to commit suicide an offence, and Section 107 IPC defines “abetment of thing”. The provisions read thus: “306. Abetment of suicide. – If any person commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of such suicide, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine. 107. Abetment of a thing. – A person abets the doing of a thing, who – Firstly. – Instigates any person to do that thing; or 8 Secondly. – Engages with one or more other person or persons in any conspiracy for the doing of that thing, if an act or illegal omission takes place in pursuance of that conspiracy, and in order to the doing of that thing; or Thirdly. – Intentionally aid, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of that thing. Explanation 1. – A person who, by willful misrepresentation, or by willful concealment of a material fact which he is bound to disclose, voluntarily causes or procures, or attempts to cause or procure, a thing to be done, is said to instigate the doing of that thing. Explanation 2. – Whoever, either prior to or at the time of the commission of an act, does anything in order to facilitate the commission of that act, and thereby facilitates the commission thereof, is said to aid the doing of that act.” 8. This Court, in Chakali Lakshmi Devi v. State of A.P.6 while quashing the case for the offence punishable under Section 306 IPC, had reiterated the settled position in the context of the offence as follows: “11. In Shabbir Hussain v. State of M.P. the Hon‟ble Apex Court explained the ingredients essential for prosecution under Section 306 as follows: 6 2024 SCC OnLine AP 383. 9 “4. In order to bring a case within the provision of Section 306 IPC, there must be a case of suicide and in the commission of the said offence, the person who is said to have abetted the commission of suicide must have played an active role by an act of instigating or by doing a certain act to facilitate the commission of suicide. ******** 6. Abetment by a person is when a person instigates another to do something. Instigation can be inferred where the accused had, by his acts or omission created such circumstances that the deceased was left with no option except to commit suicide. [Chitresh Kumar Chopra v. State (NCT of Delhi) [Chitresh Kumar Chopra v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2009) 16 SCC 605 : (2010) 3 SCC (Cri) 367].]” (emphasis supplied) 12. So far as the first clause in Section 107 is concerned, it is essential to refer to the decision rendered in Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh, wherein the Hon‟ble Supreme Court expounded the various meanings of “instigation” as follows: “20. 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 10 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 an instigation may have been inferred. A word uttered in the fit of anger or emotion without intending the consequences to actually follow cannot be said to be instigation.” (emphasis supplied) 13. A bare reading of the decisions supra and the provisions would make it clear that to charge a person under Section 306, it is essential for the prosecution to prove that the accused played a role in the suicide. Such role must fall into either of the criteria mentioned in Section 107. In simple words, the accused must either encourage/instigate the individual to take their life, conspired with others to ensure that the individual commits suicide or act/fail to act, which directly results in the individual‟s suicide.” 9. A Coordinate Bench of the then Composite High Court observed in the following lines, while interpreting Section 306 IPC in V.Sankaraiah (referred supra): “4. „Abetment‟ in Section 306 IPC has to be understood with reference to its definition given in Section 107 IPC. While considering the scope of Section 107 IPC the Supreme Court in CBI v. V.C.Shukla, observed, in Para No.50 at page No.1423 as follows: 11 “… a person abets the doing of a thing when he does any of the acts mentioned in the following three clauses. (i) instigates that person to do that thing. (ii) Engages with one or more other person or persons in any conspiracy for the doing of that thing. (iii) Intentionally aids, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of that thing. So far as the first two clauses are concerned it is not necessary that the offence instigated should have been committed. For understanding the word „aid‟ in the third clause it would be advantageous to see Explanation 2 in Section 107 IPC, which reads thus: “Whoever, either prior to or at the time of the commission of the act, does anything in order to facilitate the commission thereof, is said to aid the doing of that act.” It is thus clear that under the third clause when a person abets by aiding, the act so aided should have been committed in order to make such aiding an offence ….” Clauses (i) and (ii) extracted above do not apply to this case because no „instigation‟ by or „conspiracy‟ between the petitioner and the other accused is alleged by the prosecution. The third clause also is not attracted because no „aid‟ was given by the petitioner to the deceased when she committed suicide. Aiding suicide by a person can only be by positive acts of assisting in procuring the material required for suicide, like a person 12 supplying rope or other material for hanging, when a person expresses his desires to commit suicide by hanging, or supplying weapon or material like drugs, poison, etc., when the person intending to commit suicide asks such aid, or if a person suggest the modes in which suicide can be committed like jumping into a river, lake or well, etc., to a person who intends to commit suicide.” (emphasis supplied) 10. In Smt. Nagawwa v. Veeranna Shivalingappa Konjalgi and others (referred supra), the Hon‟ble Supreme Court held that the process against the accused is to be quashed or set-aside in the following instance: “(1) where the allegations made in the complaint or the statements of the witnesses recorded in support of the same taken at their face value make out absolutely no case against the accused or the complaint does not disclose the essential ingredients of an offence which is alleged against the accused;” the prosecution is to be quashed. (emphasis supplied) 11. (emphasis supplied) 11. To attract the offence punishable under Section 306 IPC, there must be allegation to show that the accused abetted the deceased to commit suicide. The contents of the statement of the deceased as well as the material placed on record would show that the deceased was asked to come to Pattabhipuram 13 Police Station by accused No.2 for negotiations. It is alleged that though the deceased informed that he would pay the amount by selling his house, they did not heed his words and asked him to come to police station and that the deceased got frightened and consumed Tagquit grass pesticide to commit suicide. On the face of the allegations, this Court is of the view that no prima facie case under Section 306 read with 34 IPC is made out for the reason that to prove an offence of abetment to commit suicide, the necessary ingredients under Section 107 IPC regarding the intentional instigation alleged to have been given by the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 to the deceased to commit suicide or intentional aid, have to be established. But, there is no material to prove the same and the said allegations are admittedly absent in the present case. No doubt, the deceased was called to the police station relating to the transport business affairs between the deceased and accused No.2, but the accused never contributed to the deceased or aided the deceased to commit suicide or instigated him to commit suicide. The Court has to gauge the facts and circumstances of each case in order to satisfy its view. In the facts and circumstances, this Court is of the 14 view that it is a fit case to set-aside the order of taking cognizance of the offence against the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3. 12. The Criminal Revision Case No.680 of 2023 is allowed and setting-aside the Order of taking cognizance of the offence punishable under Section 306 read with 34 IPC in PRC No.19 of 2023 against the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 by the learned II Additional Junior Civil Judge, Tenali pursuant to FIR in Crime No.140 of 2022 of Tsunduru Police Station. Accordingly, the proceedings in PRC No.19 of 2023 pending against the petitioners/accused Nos.1 to 3 on the file of the II Additional Junior Civil Judge, Tenali are quashed. As a sequel thereto, the miscellaneous petitions, if any, pending in this Criminal Revision Case shall stand closed. ______ _________________ JUSTICE K. SREENIVASA REDDY 21st January, 2025. DNB