IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA. Cr.MP(M) No. 1493 of 2026 Decided on: 14.08.2026 __________________________________________________________________ Sumit Thakur ………..Petitioner Versus State of Himachal Pradesh ……….Respondent __________________________________________________________________ Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sandeep Sharma, Judge. Whether approved for reporting? 1 For the Petitioner : Mr. Servedaman Rathore, Advocate. For the Respondent : Mr. Rajan Kahol & Mr. Vishal Panwar, Additional Advocates General, with Mr. Ravi Chauhan and Mr. Anish Banshtu, Deputy Advocates General, for State. HC Ram Lal, No.41, IO, Police Station Gagret, District Una, Himachal Pradesh, present in person along with record. __________________________________________________________________ Sandeep Sharma, Judge (oral): Sequel to order dated 07.08.2026, whereby petitioner was ordered to be enlarged on interim bail in connection with FIR No.72 of 2026, dated 22.07.2026, under Sections 140(3) and 108 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, registered at Police Station Gagret, District Una, Himachal Pradesh, respondent/State has filed status report prepared on the basis of the investigation carried out by the 1 Whether the reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? - 2 - Investigating Agency and HC Ram Lal, No.41, IO, Police Station Gagret, District Una, Himachal Pradesh, has come present along with record. Record perused and returned. 2. Close scrutiny of record/status report reveals that pursuant to order dated 07.08.2026, petitioner has already joined the investigation and at present nothing is required to be recovered from him. 3. Mr. Rajan Kahol, learned Additional Advocate General, on instructions of the Investigating Officer, states that since petitioner is accused of having committed a heinous crime punishable under Section 108 of BNS, he is not entitled to be enlarged on bail. He states that enlargement of the petitioner on bail, besides sending a wrong signal to society, may also cause a law- and-order problem in the area concerned. He states that since CDRs collected on record clearly reveal that petitioner remained in constant touch with the deceased before her committing suicide, coupled with the fact that deceased was in relationship with the petitioner for the last six to seven years, possibility of abetting and instigating the deceased to commit suicide at the behest of the petitioner cannot be ruled out. 4. Careful perusal of status report/record made available to this Court reveals that on 22.07.2026, Shri Satnam Singh, father of the deceased, lodged a report at Police Post, Daulatpur, District - 3 - Una, that his daughter, named Vaishali, aged 26 years, had gone to Daulatpur market on 19.07.2026 at 11:00 AM, but has not returned and as such he has suspicion that somebody has kidnapped her. Police, after having lodged the aforesaid report, started investigation. Mobile phone of the above named Vaishali was found switched off, but call detail report collected on record reveals that on 18/19.07.2026, deceased had long talks with the present bail petitioner, with whom deceased was all set to solemnize marriage in the month of November, 2026. On 23.07.2026, Vice President of Gram Panchayat Ambua apprised Police that one dead body is lying near Bada Mohalla forest. Police went to aforesaid spot and after having associated father of above named Vaishali, found that above named Vaishali had committed suicide after hanging from a mango tree. 5. Though complainant Satnam Singh, who had already fixed the marriage of his deceased daughter with the petitioner, did not raise any suspicion against the bail petitioner, but since bail petitioner and deceased had talked to each other for quite long on 18th and 19th July, 2026, coupled with the fact that deceased recorded in her suicide note that bail petitioner Sumit Thakur had used her and now was refusing to marry her, Police registered case against the petitioner, but before he could be arrested, he has approached this Court in the instant proceedings for grant of - 4 - anticipatory bail. Vide order dated 07.08.2026, this Court enlarged the bail petitioner on interim bail, subject to his joining investigation. 6. Though bail petitioner has already joined the investigation and nothing remains to be recovered from him, but prayer made on his behalf for making the order dated 07.08.2026 absolute is being opposed by respondent-State on the ground that petitioner is accused of heinous crime punishable under Section 108 of BNS. 7. No doubt, in the case at hand, one suicide note came to be recovered from the notebook of the deceased, but bare perusal of the same nowhere suggests that deceased has held the petitioner responsible for committing suicide. Though she has stated in the suicide note that Sumit Thakur used her and now he was going after some other person, but in the suicide note, she has mentioned that she is committing suicide of her own volition and none else is at fault. 8. To invoke Section 108 of BNS, it is incumbent upon prosecution to prove that accused named in the FIR abetted and instigated the deceased to commit suicide. Mere refusal/denial to solemnize marriage may not be sufficient to conclude abetment or instigation, rather, to prove abetment or instigation in terms of Section 108 of BNS, some overt act should have been done by the - 5 - accused. Reliance in this regard is placed upon judgment passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in case titled Yadwinder Singh @Sunny v. State of Punjab, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2332, relevant paras wherof read as under: “16. This Court in the case of “Nipun Aneja v. State of Uttar Pradesh”, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 4091 has succinctly explained the Principles of law governing abetment. We quote the relevant observations as under:— “13. The law governing Section 306 of the IPC is well settled. Section 306 of the IPC 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.” 14. Thus, the basic ingredients to constitute an offence under Section 306 of the IPC are suicidal death and abetment thereof. Abetment of a thing is defined under Section 107 of the IPC as under:— “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.— Intentionally aids, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of that thing. Explanation 1.— A person who by wilful misrepresentation, or by wilful concealment of a - 6 - 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 facilitate the commission thereof, is said to aid the doing of that act.” 17. This Court in Geo Varghese v. State of Rajasthan, (2021) 19 SCC 144, after considering the provisions of Section 306 of the IPC along with the definition of abetment under Section 107 of the IPC, has observed as under:— “14. Section 306 of IPC makes abetment of suicide a criminal offence and prescribes punishment for the same. 15. The ordinary dictionary meaning of the word ‘instigate’ is to bring about or initiate, incite someone to do something. This Court in Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2001) 9 SCC 618 : 2002 SCC (Cri) 1088, has defined the word ‘instigate’ as under: “20. Instigation is to goad, urge forward, provoke, incite or encourage to do “an act”. 16. The scope and ambit of Section 107 IPC and its co-relation with Section 306 IPC has been discussed repeatedly by this Court. In the case of S.S. Cheena v. Vijay Kumar Mahajan (2010) 12 SCC 190 : (2011) 2 SCC (Cri) 465, it was observed as under:— “25. 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 - 7 - cannot be sustained. The intention of the legislature and the ratio of the cases decided by the Supreme 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 that act must have been intended to push the deceased into such a position that he committed suicide.” (emphasis supplied) 17. Thus, the ingredients to constitute an offence under Section 306 of the IPC would stand fulfilled if the suicide is committed by the deceased due to direct and alarming encouragement/incitement by the accused leaving no option but to commit suicide. The act of instigation as alleged must be with the intention to push the deceased into such a situation that she is left with no other option but to commit suicide.” 9. The Hon'ble Apex Court in Criminal Appeal No.227/2018, Dataram Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr decided on 6.2.2018 has categorically held that freedom of an individual is of utmost importance and same cannot be curtailed merely on the basis of suspicion. Hon’ble Apex Court has further held that till the time guilt of accused is not proved, in accordance with law, he is deemed to be innocent. The relevant paras No.2 to 5 of the judgment are reproduced as under:- “2. A fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a person is believed to be innocent until found guilty. However, there are instances in our criminal law where a reverse onus has been placed on an accused with - 8 - regard to some specific offences but that is another matter and does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect of other offences. Yet another important facet of our criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the general rule and putting a person in jail or in a prison or in a correction home (whichever expression one may wish to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result that more and more persons are being incarcerated and for longer periods. This does not do any good to our criminal jurisprudence or to our society. 3. There is no doubt that the grant or denial of bail is entirely the discretion of the judge considering a case but even so, the exercise of judicial discretion has been circumscribed by a large number of decisions rendered by this Court and by every High Court in the country. Yet, occasionally there is a necessity to introspect whether denying bail to an accused person is the right thing to do on the facts and in the circumstances of a case. 4. While so introspecting, among the factors that need to be considered is whether the accused was arrested during investigations when that person perhaps has the best opportunity to tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses. If the investigating officer does not find it necessary to arrest an accused person during investigations, a strong case should be made out for placing that person in judicial custody after a charge sheet is filed. Similarly, it is important to ascertain whether the accused was participating in the investigations to the satisfaction of the investigating officer and was not absconding or not appearing when required by the investigating officer. Surely, if an accused is not hiding from the investigating officer or is hiding due to some genuine and expressed fear of being victimised, it would be a factor that a judge would need to consider in an appropriate case. It is also necessary for the judge to consider whether the accused is a first- time offender or has been accused of other offences and if so, the nature of such offences and his or her general conduct. The poverty or the deemed indigent status of an accused is also an extremely important factor and - 9 - even Parliament has taken notice of it by incorporating an Explanation to Section 436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. An equally soft approach to incarceration has been taken by Parliament by inserting Section 436A in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. 5. To put it shortly, a humane attitude is required to be adopted by a judge, while dealing with an application for remanding a suspect or an accused person to police custody or judicial custody. There are several reasons for this including maintaining the dignity of an accused person, howsoever poor that person might be, the requirements of Article 21 of the Constitution and the fact that there is enormous overcrowding in prisons, leading to social and other problems as noticed by this Court in In Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons.” 10. Needless to say, object of the bail is to secure the attendance of the accused in the trial and the proper test to be applied in the solution of the question whether bail should be granted or refused is whether it is probable that the party will appear to take his trial. Otherwise, bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Otherwise also, normal rule is of bail and not jail. Court has to keep in mind nature of accusations, nature of evidence in support thereof, severity of the punishment which conviction will entail, character of the accused, circumstances which are peculiar to the accused involved in that crime. 11. The Hon’ble Apex Court in Sanjay Chandra versus Central Bureau of Investigation (2012)1 Supreme Court Cases 49; held as under:- “The object of bail is to secure the appearance of the accused person at his trial by reasonable amount of - 10 - bail. The object of bail is neither punitive nor preventative. Deprivation of liberty must be considered a punishment, unless it can be required to ensure that an accused person will stand his trial when called upon. The Courts owe more than verbal respect to the principle that punishment begins after conviction, and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and duly found guilty. Detention in custody pending completion of trial could be a cause of great hardship. From time to time, necessity demands that some unconvicted persons should be held in custody pending trial to secure their attendance at the trial but in such cases, “necessity” is the operative test. In India , it would be quite contrary to the concept of personal liberty enshrined in the Constitution that any person should be punished in respect of any matter, upon which, he has not been convicted or that in any circumstances, he should be deprived of his liberty upon only the belief that he will tamper with the witnesses if left at liberty, save in the most extraordinary circumstances. Apart from the question of prevention being the object of refusal of bail, one must not lose sight of the fact that any imprisonment before conviction has a substantial punitive content and it would be improper for any court to refuse bail as a mark of disapproval of former conduct whether the accused has been convicted for it or not or to refuse bail to an unconvicted person for the propose of giving him a taste of imprisonment as a lesson.” 12. The Hon’ble Apex Court in Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee and Another (2010) 14 SCC 496, has laid down the following principles to be kept in mind, while deciding petition for bail: (i) whether there is any prima facie or reasonable ground to believe that the accused had committed the offence; (ii) nature and gravity of the accusation; - 11 - (iii) severity of the punishment in the event of conviction; (iv) danger of the accused absconding or fleeing, if released on bail; (v) character, behaviour, means, position and standing of the accused; (vi) likelihood of the offence being repeated; (vii) reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being influenced; and (viii) danger, of course, of justice being thwarted by grant of bail. 13. 13. Consequently, in view of the above, order dated 07.08.2026 passed by this Court, is made absolute, with following conditions:- a. he shall make himself available for the purpose of interrogation, if so required and regularly attend the trial Court on each and every date of hearing and if prevented by any reason to do so, seek exemption from appearance by filing appropriate application; b. he shall not tamper with the prosecution evidence nor hamper the investigation of the case in any manner whatsoever; c. he shall not make any inducement, threat or promises to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade him from disclosing such facts to the Court or the Police Officer; and d. he shall not leave the territory of India without the prior permission of the Court. 14. It is clarified that if the petitioner misuses his liberty or violates any of the conditions imposed upon him, the Investigating Agency shall be free to move this Court for cancellation of the bail. - 12 - 15. Any observations made hereinabove shall not be construed to be a reflection on the merits of the case and shall remain confined to the disposal of this application alone. 16. The bail petition stands disposed of accordingly. The petitioner is permitted to produce copy of order downloaded from the High Court website and the trial Court shall not insist for certified copy of the order, however, it may verify the order from the High Court website or otherwise. August 14, 2026 (Sandeep Sharma), Rajeev Raturi Judge