1 APHC010464002021 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH AT AMARAVATI (Special Original Jurisdiction) [3333] TUESDAY ,THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF FEBRUARY TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY FIVE PRESENT THE HONOURABLE SMT JUSTICE V.SUJATHA CRIMINAL PETITION NO: 6847/2021 Between: V. Sreenivasulu, ...PETITIONER/ACCUSED AND The State Of Andhra Pradesh and Others ...RESPONDENT/COMPLAINANT(S) Counsel for the Petitioner/accused: 1. RAMAKRISHNA AKURATHI Counsel for the Respondent/complainant(S): 1. PUBLIC PROSECUTOR (AP) The Court made the following: 2 ORDER The instant criminal petition under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short Cr.P.C.,), has been filed by the petitioner/A1, seeking quashment of the proceedings against him in Crime No.242 of 2020 of I Town Police Station, Srikalahasti, Tirupathi Urban District. 2. The brief facts of the complaint are as follows:- (i) De facto complainant is respondent No.2 herein. The marriage of the de facto complainant was performed about 18 years ago with Pallakuru Venkata Ramana, S/o Venkata Subbalah, aged 41 years. Her husband was engaged in their caste profession, i.e., beating of drums. They have two children, namely, P. Supraja (17 years) and P. Divya (16 years), are studying. Her husband had taken a loan from outsiders for their family expenses but was unable to repay it. He also had a habit of drinking. For three months prior to the date of incident, due to the COVID-19 lockdown, he had no work and no money to meet family expenses, which further prevented him from repaying his debts. As a result, he often fell into psychological depression. (ii) While the situation stood thus, on 29.05.2020, at about 07:00 AM, the de facto complainant found her husband, P. Venkata Ramana, dead, having hanged himself with his dothi from a ceiling hook in their hall. He was indebted to several persons and unable to look after the welfare of the de facto complainant and their children. Vexed with his life, he committed suicide using his dothi. 3 (iii) Basing on the complaint, a case in Crime No.242 of 2020 for the offence u/s 174 Cr.P.C. was registered initially. After completion of cremation of the body of the deceased, the de facto complainant verified the mobile belongs to her husband and found a selfie video, which was recorded by her husband before committing suicide and on watching the said video, she found that her husband committed suicide due to the harassment of money lenders i.e., A1 and others. Basing on which, the Police altered the Section of law from 174 Cr.P.C to Section 306 r/w 34 IPC. 3. Heard Sri Rama Krishna Akurathi, learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Assistant Public Prosecutor for the respondents. 4. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner is falsely implicated in the present case and has nothing to do with the alleged offences. There was nothing on record which would constitute the commission of an offence under Section 306 IPC as the ingredients of Section 107 IPC are completely lacking. He further submits that for an offence under Section 306 IPC the prosecution should have, at the very least established that the accused had an intention to aid, instigate or abet the deceased to commit suicide. Without a positive act on the part of the accused in aiding, instigating or abetting the deceased to commit suicide, the question of the commission of the offence did not arise. Hence, he prayed for quashment. 5. On the other hand, learned Assistant Public Prosecutor for the respondents submits that there are specific allegations made against the 4 petitioners. The truth or otherwise of the allegations will be revealed during the course of the trial. There are no grounds to quash the proceedings against the petitioners at this stage. Hence, prayed to dismiss the petition. 6. Having heard both sides, now the point that would emerge for determination is: Whether there are any justifiable grounds for quashing of the proceedings against the petitioner/A1 in Crime No.242 of 2020 of I Town Police Station, Srikalahasthi, for the offence under Section 306 r/w 34 of the IPC? 7. A bare perusal of Section 482 of Cr.P.C. makes it clear that the Code envisages that inherent powers of the High Court are not limited or affected so as to make orders as may be necessary; (i) to give effect to any order under the Code or, (ii) to prevent abuse of the process of any Court or, otherwise (iii) to secure ends of justice. A Court while sitting in Section 482 jurisdiction is not functioning as a court of appeal or a court of revision. It must exercise its powers to do real and substantial justice, depending on the facts and circumstances of the case. These powers must be invoked for compelling reasons of abuse of process of law or glaring injustice, which are against sound principles of criminal jurisprudence. 8. Specific circumstances warranting the invocation of the provision must be present. To identify these specific circumstances, it is essential to discuss some precedents. In State of Haryana and others v. Bhajanlal and others1 1 AIR 1992 SC 604 5 the Apex Court considered in detail the powers of High Court under Section 482 and the power of the High Court to quash criminal proceedings or FIR. The Apex Court summarized the legal position by laying down the following guidelines to be followed by High Courts in exercise of their inherent powers to quash a criminal complaint: (1) Where the allegations made in the first information report or the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out a case against the accused. (2) Where the allegations in the first information report and other materials, if any, accompanying the FIR do not disclose a cognizable offence, justifying an investigation by police officers under Section 156(1) of the Code except under an order of a Magistrate within the purview of Section 155(2) of the Code. (3) Where the allegations made in the FIR or complaint and the evidence collected in support of the same do not disclose the commission of any offence and make out a case against the accused. (4) Where, the allegations in the FIR do not constitute a cognizable offence but constitute only a non-cognizable offence, no investigation is permitted by a police officer without an order of a Magistrate as contemplated under Section 155(2) of the Code. (5) Where the allegations made in the FIR or complaint are so absurd and inherently improbable on the basis of which no prudent person can ever reach a just conclusion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. (6) Where there is an express legal bar engrafted in any of the provisions of the Code or the concerned Act (under which a criminal proceeding is instituted) to the institution and continuance of the proceedings and/or where there is a specific provision in the Code or the concerned Act, providing efficacious redress for the grievance of the aggrieved party. 6 (7) Where a criminal proceeding is manifestly attended with mala fide and/or where the proceeding is maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the accused and with a view to spite him due to private and personal grudge. 9. Keeping in view the legal position stated above, before examining the facts of the case herein, it is relevant to extract the provisions of Section 306 IPC and Section 107 of IPC, which reads as under:- 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- First.-Instigates any person to do that thing; or 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.- Internationally aides, by any act or illegal omission, 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. 10. In Ramesh Kumar Vs. State of Chattisgarh2, the Hon’ble Apex Court had examined the scope of meaning of instigation within meaning of that expression under Section 107 of Indian Penal Code and held as under:- “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 2 2001 (9) SEC 618 7 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 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.” 11. Further in Gangula Mohan Reddy Vs. State of A.P3, the Hon’ble Apex Court while dealing with “abetment” held as under:- “20. Abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing of a thing. Without a positive act on the part of the accused to instigate or aid in committing suicide, conviction cannot be sustained. 21. The intention of the Legislature and the ration of the cases decided by this court is clear that in order to convict a person under section 306 IPC there has to be a clear mens rea to commit the offence. It also requires an active act or direct act which led the deceased to commit suicide seeing no option and this act must have been intended to push the deceased into such a position that he committed suicide.” 12. A thorough reading of the portions extracted above makes it clear that for abetting an offence, the person abetting must have intentionally aided the commission of the crime and abetment requires an instigation to commit or intentionally aiding the commission of a crime. It presupposes a course of conduct or action which facilitates another to end life. The essential ingredients of the offence under Section 306 IPC are: (i) the abetment; (ii) the intention of the accused to aid or instigate or abet the deceased to commit suicide. The act of the accused, however, insulting the deceased by using abusive language will not, by itself, constitute the abetment of suicide. There 3 AIR 2010 SC 327 8 should be evidence capable of suggesting that the accused intended by such act to instigate the deceased to commit suicide. 13. The law is well settled that in order to bring a case within the purview 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 instigation or by doing certain act to facilitate the commission of suicide. Mere allegation of harassment of the deceased by another person would not suffice unless there be such action on the part of the accused which compels the person to commit suicide; and such an offending action ought to be proximate to the time of occurrence .In cases of alleged abetment of suicide, there must be a proof of direct or indirect act/s of incitement to the commission of suicide. It could hardly be disputed that the question of cause of a suicide, particularly in the context of an offence of abetment of suicide, remains a vexed one, involving multifaceted and complex attributes of human behaviour and responses/reactions. Whether a person has abetted in the commission of suicide by another or not, could only be gathered from the facts and circumstances of each case. 14. In the case on hand, the allegation against the petitioner is that he along with others harassed the deceased for repayment of money which was borrowed from him and as such he is responsible for the suicide committed by the husband of the 2nd respondent-complainant. However, the same cannot be considered to be a cause either direct or indirect act of incitement to the 9 commission of suicide. There is no allegation that any act was done by the petitioner in close proximity to the date of suicide. By no stretch of imagination, the alleged acts of the petitioner can amount to instigation to commit suicide. There is absolutely no averment that the present petitioner had caused any harm to the deceased or was in any way responsible for the alleged commission of suicide. In the absence of any proof of instigation or incitement, it is impossible to conclude that mere act of the petitioner in demanding the deceased for repayment of money cannot be said to be an act of instigation to facilitate the commission of suicide by the deceased. Hence, this court is of the considered view that the offence punishable under Section 306 IPC was not made out against the petitioner and thus, continuation of criminal proceedings against the petitioners is nothing but an abuse of process of law and the same are liable to be quashed. 15. Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is allowed by quashing the proceedings against the petitioner/A1 in Crime No.242 of 2020 of I Town Police Station, Srikalahasti, Tirupathi Urban District. As a sequel thereto, miscellaneous petitions pending, if any, shall stand closed. ___________________ JUSTICE V.SUJATHA Dt.18.02.2025 JLV