Boss’s stern behaviour not suicide abetment: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has held that ordinary administrative directions, disciplinary supervision, adverse remarks on an official’s performance, even stern behaviour by a superior, however unpleasant they may have been perceived by the deceased, cannot by themselves be elevated to the offence of abetment of suicide under the penal law.

A bench of justices Satish Chandra Sharma and N Kotiswar Singh said that there must be additional material demonstrating a conscious intention to drive a subordinate to commit suicide, along with a proximate act amounting to instigation or intentional aid.

“Criminal liability under Section 306 of the IPC (abetment to suicide) cannot rest upon the tragedy of the outcome alone; it must be founded upon the statutory ingredients of Section 306, which are absent in the present case,” said the bench while discharging a senior forest officer accused of abetting the suicide of a woman forest range officer.

The judgment, released earlier this week, came in an appeal filed by Vinod Shivakumar, then deputy conservator of forests, against the Bombay High Court’s refusal to interfere with criminal proceedings against him. The Supreme Court set aside the high court and trial court orders and discharged Shivakumar from the case.

The case arose from the suicide on March 25, 2021, of a forest range officer posted in the Harisal Range in Maharashtra. She shot herself with her official weapon and left behind three suicide notes addressed to the additional principal chief conservator of forests and area director, her mother and her husband. The notes specifically blamed Shivakumar for her death.

The prosecution alleged that Shivakumar had subjected her to mental harassment, reprimanded her, issued show-cause notices and made her undertake field duties. The allegations also included an incident in March 2020 concerning removal of an encroachment and arrest of accused persons, registration of an FIR under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and forcing her to trek in the forest despite her pregnancy, which she alleged resulted in a miscarriage.

The woman officer’s suicide note alleged that Shivakumar abused and humiliated her in the presence of staff and villagers, repeatedly harassed her and was responsible for stopping her salary.

The prosecution relied on these allegations and witness statements to contend that the officer’s repeated insults and alleged harassment had driven the deceased to take her life. It also pointed to an earlier complaint against Shivakumar by a forest peon alleging cruel behaviour towards subordinate staff.

The Supreme Court, however, said the material on record did not disclose the ingredients necessary to constitute abetment under Section 306 IPC, underlining that abetment requires direct or indirect instigation in close proximity to the suicide and clear mens rea to abet its commission.

The court noted that the alleged miscarriage had occurred in October 2020, more than five months before the suicide, while the allegations concerning removal of encroachments and registration of the atrocity case dated back to March 2020.