Mumbai: The recent death by suicide of a second-year IIT-Bombay student brought into sharp focus one of the most legally complex and emotionally charged areas of criminal law: abetment of suicide. At its core, the offence requires a trial court to ascertain whether a person’s words, actions, neglect or dereliction directly instigated and caused another individual to take their own life.IIT-B professor Suryanarayana Doolla has been booked for allegedly abetting the suicide and under provisions of the caste Atrocities Act, while the student Sahil Wakode’s parents, grieving an irreplaceable loss, launched a fast to demand his arrest for abetment too, an offence that attracts up to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and fine.However, convictions in abetment-related cases remain difficult to secure. According to the National Crime Records Bureau report, only 26 of 210 trials completed in 2024 ended in conviction; 176 resulted in acquittal and eight ended in discharge. The recorded conviction rate was 12.4%. At the year-end, 4,063 cases were still pending trial, with the pendency percentage at 94.9%.Abetment, the Supreme Court has held, involves “instigation” that is direct, proximate and intentional. The core principle evolved through a consistent line of rulings is that mere harassment, humiliation, quarrels or even cruelty don’t automatically prove or amount to abetment of suicide.Proof rests on specific facts and circumstances of each case. Mens rea, Latin for a guilty mind, is crucial to prove that the alleged instigation was intentional. The Supreme Court has said mens rea cannot be presumed and must be established.In a 2023 ruling, Supreme Court judge Justice B R Gavai said, “The close proximity should be such as to create a clear nexus between the act of instigation and the act of suicide.” For an abetment of suicide charge to stand, the accused must be shown to have intended, through words or actions, to push the other person into a position that left them with no choice but to die by suicide, the court held while dropping the charge against a man whose estranged wife ended her life a month after he allegedly refused to let her return to their matrimonial home.A “direct influence or oblique impact” of the words of an accused on a person’s mind is also not sufficient to constitute abetment of suicide, Bombay High Court Justices A S Chandurkar and Jitendra Jain held in 2024 while acquitting eight members of a Nashik family.Senior advocate Rajendra Shirodkar said that in the IIT-B case, once the police probe is over and if the matter goes to trial, the court will ascertain whether there was abetment and instigation, its proximity in time to the suicide, and other surrounding factors.Acquittals outnumber convictions, with four acquittals since 2021 in Mumbai, including in the 2013 suicide abetment case of actor Jiah Khan. On April 28, 2023, a Special CBI Court in Mumbai acquitted actor Sooraj Pancholi, her then boyfriend, of abetment charges, citing paucity of evidence to prove direct instigation.In multiple cases, the accused are on bail; in two cases, they are on pre-arrest bail while trial is pending.Advocate Mubin Solkar said, “The Supreme Court has said factors like the victim’s age, personality, upbringing, rural or urban background, education and self-confidence play a role in evaluating a case. Instigation involves goading, urging, provoking, inciting or encouraging a person to do an act. Importantly, words uttered in a fit of anger or emotion, without intention that their consequence should actually follow, would not necessarily constitute instigation.”Explaining that a “delicate analysis of human nature” is involved in such cases, Supreme Court Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari said in 2019, “Human mind could be affected and could react in myriad ways; and impact of one’s action on the mind of another carries several imponderables. Similar actions are dealt with differently by different persons; and so far a particular person’s reaction to any other human’s action is concerned, there is no specific theorem or yardstick to estimate or assess the same.”Advocate Prashant Patil said to understand the law on abetment of suicide, one must first understand the definition of abetment. “The provision requires an overt act by the accused in instigating the victim into a situation where the victim is left with no alternative but to die by suicide. Supreme Court judgments have consistently held that there must be intention, or mens rea, on the part of the accused. Individual sensitivity to a particular situation cannot, by itself, amount to instigation in law,” Patil said. He further said that while the right to live with dignity is a fundamental right, the right to die is not recognised under law.
