Suicide attempt not to be a criminal offence

The government intends to drop attempted suicide from a list of crimes punishable by prison. The government informed Parliament of its decision in a written reply from the home ministry on Wednesday, saying it was acting on a recommendation of the Law Commission.

Minister of State for Home Haribhai Chaudhary said the Law Commission of India, in its 210th report, had recommended that Section 309 (attempt to commit suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) needs to be removed from the statute book. Chaudhary said since law and order is a state subject, views of all states and Union Territories (UT) were sought on the recommendations of the Law Commission.

"Eighteen states and four UT administrations have supported that Section 309 of the IPC may be deleted. Keeping in view the responses from the states/UTs, it has been decided to delete it from the Statute book," he said in reply to a written question.

The World Health Organization has listed India as one of the countries with the highest suicide rates - 21.1 per 100,000 people in 2012. The government said 134,799 people committed suicide in 2013, a rise of 11.9 per cent over the previous year. There was no data on the number of attempted suicides, it said.

About 800,000 people each year worldwide commit suicide - around one person every 40 seconds - WHO said in September.