New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday affirmed a Bombay High Court ruling setting aside a suicide abetment case against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Praful Khoda Patel, the administrator of the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu.
The case was linked to the death of prominent tribal leader and MP Mohanbhai Sanjibhai Delkar, who was found hanging in a hotel room in Mumbai in February 2021. Delkar’s son Abhinav Delkar had filed an FIR against Patel and eight others, alleging that his father had been subjected to ill-treatment, harassment and defamation by certain people under Patel’s orders.
But the Supreme Court said it found no evidence of instigation by the accused in this case.
“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,” a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai, alongside Justice Vinod Chandran, ruled.
The top court dismissed Abhinav’s challenge to an 8 September, 2022 Bombay High Court ruling that there was no “nexus” between Delkar’s suicide and the actions of the accused, including Patel’s. “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,” the top court said in its 37-page ruling.
The court further noted that although a life had been tragically lost, and several questions were left unanswered, its “anxious reading and re-reading” of the complaints, statements, suicide note, and the subsequent police delay in registering the crime, led it to dismiss the petitioner’s case.
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The case
On 22 February, 2021, Delkar was found hanging in room number 512 of Mumbai’s Sea Green South Hotel on Marine Drive. The tribal leader, who belonged to the Scheduled Tribe community and was serving as the MP of Dadra and Nagar Haveli Lok Sabha constituency, had continuously worked towards the development of his area, devoting his life to the social development of tribals in particular.
Days after the incident, once the religious rituals were complete, his son reached Mumbai and recorded his statement before the police, which was treated as a First Information Report (FIR). This FIR, registered on 9 March, named Patel as one of the main conspirators in the case, alongside eight others—most of them government officials.
The FIR alleged that they were guilty of offences like abetment to suicide, criminal conspiracy, criminal intimidation and putting someone in fear of an offence, punishable by death or life imprisonment, under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Abhinav’s FIR also claimed that the accused—including a police superintendent, law secretary and the constituency’s administrator, among other government officials and private individuals—were also guilty of violating the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which penalises offences like causing grievous hurt to a person, assault, or even imposing a social or economic boycott.
The late MP’s son also alleged that they had prevented him from availing the benefits of public service due to him, and had instituted false, malicious or vexatious cases or criminal proceedings against him, among other offences under the SC/ST Act.
In September 2022, the Bombay HC decided to club and hear together the pleas of the accused individuals, who sought the quashing of the FIR registered against them the previous year.
By way of his plea, Delkar’s son had said that his father had devoted his entire life to the upliftment and social development of tribals, and had even served a seventh successful term as a representative of his constituency. He had first entered Parliament in 1989.
Delkar, along with his driver and bodyguard, had reached Mumbai in February 2021 to attend a court matter. The next day, he was found dead. The driver informed his son, who travelled to Mumbai and conducted inquiries with the police about his father’s suicide. The police informed Abhinav that his father had allegedly left behind a suicide note. Minutes of parliamentary privileges committee meetings were also found.
Abhinav then filed an FIR alleging that his late father had been subjected to ill-treatment, harassment and defamation at the hands of certain people and under Patel’s orders. Unable to bear this, he took his own life, Abhinav claimed, adding that the accused had hatched a conspiracy to create an “atmosphere of pressure and depression”, which ultimately drove his father to suicide.
He also alleged that his father was targeted to take over control of SSR College, which the MP was running, and to prevent him from contesting the upcoming elections. He also cited instances of abuse, such as fake cases, reopening of investigation in an old case against him, and defamatory and false videos of him being circulated on social media.
On the other hand, the accused said that Delkar had merely assumed that the administration was acting under Patel’s orders and that private individuals closely associated with him were acting vindictively against him. They also told the court that no copy of the suicide note mentioned in the FIR was shared with them, even though it was a crucial piece of information.
Why Bombay HC quashed the FIR
In its 8 September, 2022 ruling, a bench of Justices P.B. Varale and Shrikant D. Kulkarni of Bombay High Court said that subjecting the accused to criminal prosecution amounted to an “abuse of process of law”.
The court set aside the FIR, noting that there was no evidence of any positive or active role played by the accused in taking control of the college run by Delkar’s trust, or in assisting Patel to do so.
“In such a situation, if both these alleged objects are not substantially established and it is only in the form of certain allegations and an impression of the deceased, then on such an unacceptable and unsustainable material asking the Petitioners to undergo the rigors of criminal prosecution, is nothing but an abuse of process of law,” the court said.
“Except bare words that the Petitioners were acting under the directions of Administrator there is not a single incident to show that these Petitioners came together and acted under the dictates of the Administrator,” the division bench added, ruling out allegations of criminal conspiracy in the case.
Notably, the court also pointed out that the 15-page suicide note did not mention continuous conduct of harassment, adding that in such a situation, the high court would be justified in quashing the proceedings.
Why SC confirmed HC’s ruling
The top court said Monday that the case raised the question of whether every allegation, accusation, reprimand, rebuke, insinuation, insult or even continuous acts of ill-treatment could amount to abetment, if a person took their own life.
It noted that once a complaint is filed, FIRs are registered, investigations are carried out and the alleged perpetrator is even taken into custody without examining the existence of mens rea, a legal concept in criminal law that means guilty mind.
“A seven-time Member of Parliament committed suicide on 22.02.2021, leaving behind a suicide note which named persons, both in the administration and the police, who according to him, conspired to defame, degrade and demean him so as to end his political career and bring down his social standing, thus driving him to suicide,” the judgment read.
However, after examining the suicide note, the statements and the police’s delay in registering the FIR, the court concluded that the ingredients of this offence were not satisfied.
The court observed that while the victim may have felt that there was no alternative other than taking his life because of another person’s words or actions, this could not lead to a finding of mens rea and abetment. It also noted that different people may react differently under pressure.
“However harsh or severe the harassment, unless there is a conscious deliberate intention, mens rea, to drive another person to suicidal death, there cannot be a finding of abetment under Section 306,” the court said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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