New Delhi, Aug 18 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday refused to restore an FIR against nine persons, including Praful Khoda Patel, administrator of the Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, for allegedly abetting the suicide of former MP Mohan Delkar in 2021.
The apex court verdict came on an appeal by Abhinav Delkar, son of the late Lok Sabha MP, against the Bombay High Court order of September 8, 2022, quashing the case against nine persons, including Patel.
A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran said there was not a “modicum of material in the case to find abetment of suicide”.
“We have found the suicide note to be suspect and we are not convinced that there is any modicum of material in the case to find abetment of suicide. The high court was not in error, when it quashed the FIR, when no case is made out from the first information statement (FIS),” it added.
Justice Chandran, who penned the verdict, upheld the Bombay High Court verdict and said, “True, a person unable to bear the pressure or withstand a humiliation or unable to oppose, may succumb to the extreme act of ending his own life, in desperation; but that would not necessarily mean that the alleged perpetrator had an intention to lead the victim to eventual death by his own or her own hands.” The verdict also didn’t find any “instigation or a definitive abetment to suicide” by the accused persons as alleged in the FIR.
“There arises a cloud on the suicide note, when looking at the admitted statements recorded in the proceedings of the Committee of Privileges and also the manner in which the note was introduced in the case,” it added.
The bench further underscored no reference to the allegations in the suicide note against the officers named in the case.
The verdict said while statements made by others, including the son and associates of the deceased MP, could not be incorporated in the complaint as it was a “clear hearsay”, the statements made by the deceased in the suicide note, did not make a case for abetment of suicide.
It said allegations in the FIS or the complaint did not constitute any offence or made a case against the accused.
“Division bench of the high court had rightly quashed the proceedings, finding the charge of abetment to commit suicide to be absent. Much emphasis was laid on the charge of extortion, which has been first stated in the suicide note and not disclosed in any of the complaints earlier made to the speaker or the Committee of Privileges,” the verdict said.
The apex court reserved the verdict on the plea on August 4 after hearing senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for Abhinav, and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for the state government and senior lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani on behalf of some of the accused persons.
The FIR was registered after the death of Delkar, a seven-time MP from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, who was found dead at a hotel in Mumbai in 2021.
An alleged suicide note penned by him detailed harassment and intimidation, prompting police action against several persons, including top bureaucrats and political figures.
During the hearing, the bench examined whether the material on record, including the purported 30-page suicide note, could sustain charges under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of IPC.
“The person had time to think over and write 30 pages. Can we say it (the suicide) was at the spur of the moment?” the CJI asked previously.
He said individual responses to stress or harassment could differ.
On September 8, 2022, the high court held it to be a fit case to quash the FIR to “prevent abuse of law” against the accused. It also noted the contents of the FIR and reference made to the incident fell “too short” to show any “positive act” committed by the accused persons to abet the suicide of Delkar.
Delkar, 58, was found dead in a room at a hotel in Marine Drive in south Mumbai on February 22, 2021.
Patel and eight others were booked by the Mumbai police in March 2021 on charges of abetting the suicide and criminal intimidation of Delkar on a complaint lodged by his son Abhinav.
The parliamentarian was alleged to have died by suicide due to the harassment by the accused persons, who wanted to take control of the educational institutions he ran and to dissuade him from contesting elections. The accused moved the high court last year to get the FIR quashed, arguing they had been framed. PTI SJK MNR SJK AMK AMK
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