2009 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY vs.

STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH 5

3
2011 Supreme Court Online 5
(CORAM : DALVEER BHANDARI & A.K PATNAIK, JJ.)
Criminal Appeal No. 1301 of 2002; Decided on :05-01-2010
GANGULA MOHAN REDDY Appellant.
GANGULA MOHAN REDDY Versus STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH
STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH Respondents.
(A) Indian Penal Code, 1860—Section 306 r/w Section 107—
Abetment of suicide—A person committing suicide must commit it by
himself, irrespective of means employed by him in achieving his object of
killing himself—Deceased was hyper sensitive to ordinary petulance,
discord and differences which happen in our day-to-day life—Human
sensitivity of each individual differs from other—Different people behave
differently in same situation—Without a positive act on part of accused
to instigate or aid in committing suicide, conviction cannot be
sustained—Appeal allowed. (Paras 7, 16, 18, 20 and 22)
(B) Indian Penal Code, 1860—Sections 306 and 309—Suicide—
Attempt and abatement—In order to convict a person u/s 306 IPC there
has to be a clear mens rea to commit offence coupled with direct act
which led deceased to commit suicide seeing no option—Each person’s
suicidability pattern is different from others—Each person has his own
idea of self esteem and self respect—There cannot be any strait-jacket
formula in dealing with such cases—Each case has to be decided on basis
of its own facts and circumstances. (Paras 19, 20 and 21)

(1994) 1 SCC 73; 2009(11) SCALE 24—Relied on.

Held—1. Deceased was hyper sensitive to ordinary petulance, discord

and differences which happen in our day-to-day life. Human sensitivity of
each individual differs from the other. Different people behave differently in
same situation. (Para 18)
(ii) Intention of Legislature and ratio of cases decided by 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. (Para 21)
Important Point—Abetment involves a mental process of instigating
a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing of a thing.
Counsel for the Parties
Ms. T. Anamika, Advocate for the Appellant.
6 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH 2010

Mrs. D. Bharathi Reddy, Advocate for the Respondent

Alphabetical list of cases cited in this Judgment Para
• Chitresh Kumar Chopra vs. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi), 2009 (11) SCALE 24 19
• Mahendra Singh and another vs. State of M.P., 1995 Supp. (3) SCC 731 13
• Ramesh Kumar vs. State of Chhattisgarh, (2001) 9 SCC 618 15
• State of West Bengal vs. Orilal Jaiswal and another, (1994) 1 SCC 73 16
JUDGMENT
DALVEER BHANDARI. J.—This appeal is directed against the judgment of
the High Court of Judicature of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad in Criminal
Appeal No. 1039 of 1996 dated 30.3.2002. The appellant was convicted by
the Assistant Sessions Judge, Nagarkurnool under Section 306 of the Indian
Penal Code (for short ‘the Code’) and sentenced to suffer
rigorousimprisonment for 10 years and to pay a fine of Rs. 10,000/-and in
default to suffer simple imprisonment for six months.
2. The appellant, aggrieved by the said judgment of the learned Assistant
Sessions Judge filed an appeal before the High Court. The High Court upheld
the judgment of the learned Assistant Sessions Judge, but while affirming the
conviction of the appellant under Section 306 of the Code, the sentence of
rigorous imprisonment of 10 years was reduced to 5 years. The appellant,
aggrieved by the said judgment, approached this Court. This Court granted
leave and released the appellant on bail.
3. The brief facts which are relevant to dispose of this appeal are
recapitulated as under:
According to the case of the prosecution, the appellant, who is an
agriculturist had harassed his agriculture labour (servant) deceased Ramulu
by levelling the allegation that he had committed theft of some gold
ornaments two days prior to his death. It was also alleged that the appellant
had demanded Rs. 7,000/- from the deceased which was given in advance
to him at the time when he was kept in employment.
4. The prosecution further alleged that the deceased Ramulu could not
bear the harassment meted out to him and he committed suicide by
consuming pesticides. The prosecution in support of its case examined the
father of the deceased as P.W.1 Urikonda Jammanna in which he had stated
that his son Ramulu was a farm servant and used to work at the house of the
appellant. He also stated that the appellant gave Rs. 7,000/- in advance to his
son. PW1 also stated that about two years ago, the appellant had asked his son
(Ramulu) that his wrist watch was missing from his house and harassed him
on which his son had returned the watch to the appellant. PW 1 in his
statement stated that the appellant also levelled the allegation that the gold
ear-rings were also missing from his house and the same were stolen by
Ramulu. PW 1 also stated that the appellant also demanded the advance of
Rs. 7,000/- paid to Ramulu at the time of his employment. He further stated
2009 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH 7
that Ramulu committed suicide because the appellant had levelled the
allegation of theft of ornaments.
5. The prosecution also examined Balamma, the mother of the deceased
as P.W.2. She also corroborated the statement ofPW1 and gave same version
of the incident in her testimony. On the basis of the testimonies of P.W.1 and
P.W.2, the Trial Court convicted the appellant under Section 306 of the Code
and his conviction on appeal was confirmed by the High Court.
6. Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the conviction of the
appellant is totally unsustainable because no ingredients of offence under
section 306 of the Code can be made out in the facts and circumstances of this
case. It would be profitable to set out section 306 of the Code:
“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 extent to ten years, and shall also
be liable to fine.”
7. The word suicide in itself is nowhere defined in the Indian Penal Code,
however its meaning and import is well known and requires no explanation.
‘Sui’ means ‘self and ‘cide’ means ‘killing’, thus implying an act of self-
killing. In short a person committing suicide must commit it by himself,
irrespective of the means employed by him in achieving his object of killing
himself.
8. Suicide by itself is not an offence under either English or Indian
criminal law, though at one time it was a felony in England. In England, the
former law was of the nature of being a deterrent to people as it provided
penalties of two types:
• Degradation of corpse of deceased by burying it on the highway with a
stake through its chest.
• Forfeiture of property of deceased by the State.
9. This penalty was later distilled down to merely not providing a full
Christian burial, unless the deceased could be proved to be of unsound mind.
However, currently there is no punishment for suicide after the enactment of
the Suicide Act, 1961 which proclaims that the rule of law whereby it was a
crime for a person to commit suicide has been abrogated.
10. In our country, while suicide in itself is not an offence, considering
that the successful offender is beyond the reach of law, attempt to suicide is
an offence under section 309 of IPC.
11. ‘Abetment’ has been defined under section 107 of the Code. We deem
it appropriate to reproduce section 107, which reads 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
8 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH 2010

places in pursuance of that conspiracy, and in order to the doing of that

thing; or
Thirdly - Intentionally aides, by any act or illegal omission, the doing of
that thing.”
12. Explanation 2 which has been inserted along with section 107 reads as
under:
“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.”
13. Learned counsel for the appellant has placed reliance on a judgment
of this Court in Mahendra Singh and another vs. State of M.P., 1995 Supp.
(3) SCC 731. In the case of Mahendra Singh, the allegations levelled are as
under:-
“My mother-in-law and husband and sister-in-law (husband’s elder
brother’s wife) harassed me. They beat me and abused me. My husband
Mahendra wants to marry a second time. He has illicit connections with my
sister-in-law. Because of these reasons and being harassed I want to die by
burning.”
14. The court on aforementioned allegations came to a definite conclusion
that by no stretch the ingredients of abetment are attracted on the statement of
the deceased. According to the appellant, the conviction of the appellant
under section 306 IPC merely on the basis of aforementioned allegation of
harassment of the deceased is unsustainable in law.
15. Learned counsel also placed reliance on another judgment of this
court in Ramesh Kumar vs. State of Chhattisgarh, (2001) 9 SCC 618. A three-
Judge bench of this court had an occasion to deal with a case of a similar
nature. In a dispute between the husband and wife, the appellant husband
uttered “you are free to do whatever you wish and go wherever you like”.
Thereafter, the wife of the appellant Ramesh Kumar committed suicide. The
Court inparagraph 20 has examined different shades of the meaning of
“instigation’. Para 20 reads 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 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.”
2009 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH 9
16. In State of West Bengal vs. Orilal Jaiswal and another, (1994) 1 SCC
73, this Court has cautioned that the Court should be extremely careful in
assessing the facts and circumstances of each case and the evidence adduced
in the trail for the purpose of finding whether the cruelty meted out to the
victim had in fact induced her to end the life by committing suicide. If it
appears to the Court that a victim committing suicide was hypersensitive to
ordinary petulance, discord and difference in domestic life quite common to
the society to which the victim belonged and such petulance,discord and
difference were not expected to induce a similarly circumstanced individual
in a given society to commit suicide, the conscience of the Court should not
be satisfied for basing a finding that the accused charged of abetting the
offence of suicide should be found guilty.
17. The Court in the instant case came to the conclusion that there is no
evidence and material available on record wherefrom an inference of the
accused-appellant having abetted commission of suicide by Seema may
necessarily be drawn.
18. In the instant case, the deceased was undoubtedly hyper sensitive to
ordinary petulance, discord and differences which happen in our day-to-day
life. Human sensitivity of each individual differs from the other. Different
people behave differently in the same situation.
19. This court in Chitresh Kumar Chopra vs. State (Govt. of NCT of
Delhi), 2009 (11) SCALE 24 had an occasion to deal with this aspect of
abetment. The court dealt with the dictionary meaning of the word
“instigation” and “goading”. The court opined that there should be intention
to provoke,incite or encourage the doing of an act by the latter. Each person’s
suicidability pattern is different from the others. Each person has his own idea
of self esteem and self respect. Therefore, it is impossible to lay down any
straight-jacket formula in dealing with such cases. Each case has to be
decided on the basis of its own facts and circumstances.
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 ratio 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.
22. In the light of the provisions of law and the settled legal positions
crystallized by a series of judgments of this Court, the conviction of the
appellant cannot be sustained.Consequently, the appeal filed by the appellant
is allowed and disposed of.
10 GANGULA MOHAN REDDY vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH 2010

23. During the pendency of the appeal, the appellant was released on bail.
He is not required to surrender. His bail bond is cancelled and he is set at
liberty forthwith, if not required in any other case.
24. Consequently, the appeal filed by the appellant is allowed.