SC quashes FIR against govt official accused of abetting colleague's suicide

The Supreme Court has quashed an FIR against a government official accused of overloading his colleague with work and driving him to commit suicide, saying the offence of abetting is made out only if a situation is deliberately created to compel a person to take his life.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit allowed the appeal of the accused officer of the Directorate of Education (DoE) of Aurangabad in Maharashtra, who was accused of abetting the suicide of his junior last year, against the Bombay High Court's decision refusing to quash the criminal proceedings against him.

According to the FIR filed by the victim's wife, the senior DoE official had overloaded her husband with work, called him at odd hours and stopped his salary for a month.

While the high court had refused to quash the FIR, the top court was of the view that facts of the case were insufficient to attract the offence of abetment of suicide.

"It is true that if a situation is created deliberately so as to drive a person to commit suicide, there would be room for attracting Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the IPC.

"However, the facts on record in the present case are completely inadequate and insufficient. As a superior officer, if some work was assigned by the applicant to the deceased, merely on that count it cannot be said that there was any guilty mind or criminal intent. The exigencies of work and the situation may call for certain action on part of a superior including stopping of salary of a junior officer for a month," the judgement authored by Justice U U Lalit said.

The allegations in the FIR are completely inadequate and do not satisfy the requirements under Section 306 of the IPC, the bench held.

"We are of the firm view that the interest of justice demands that the proceedings initiated against the appellant are required to be quashed," it said.

The High Court had on January 23 dismissed the senior official's appeal, saying the facts indicate that there was no direct abetment and the applicants cannot have any intention that the deceased should commit suicide.

"Even when the accused persons have no such intention, if they create a situation causing tremendous mental tension so as to drive the person to commit suicide, they can be said to be instigating the accused to commit suicide."