For wrong decision of suicide by person of 'frail mentality', who is to be blamed? Delhi HC gives view [Read Judgment]

NEW DELHI: Granting anticipatory bail to an ex-lover of a deceased man whose father alleged abetment of suicide by his ex-lady love, the Delhi High Court has held that for a wrong decision taken by a man of frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his suicide.

The Court was hearing anticipatory bail applications of the lady and her alleged current lover.

Ruling in favour of the lady, a single judge bench of Justice Amit Mahajan wrote, "If a lover commits suicide due to love failure, if a student commits suicide because of his poor performance in the examination, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide. For the wrong decision taken by a man of weak or frail mentality, another person cannot be blamed as having abetted his committing suicide.”

In holding thus, the Court placed reliance on WhatsApp chats placed on record perusing which it concluded that “the deceased was of sensitive nature and constantly threatened the applicant–Aarushi Gupta of committing suicide whenever she refused to talk to him.”

Further, the Court also found that the sister of the deceased herself used to request the accused lady to talk to the deceased and promised her that the deceased would not do any wrong to her.

Thereafter, the applicants - the accused lady and the alleged current lover - were granted interim protection by the Delhi High Court and joined the investigation regularly since then.

The Court also noted that though the deceased had named the lady and her alleged current lover in the suicide note, “there is nothing mentioned, as to the nature of threats in the alleged suicide note written by deceased of such an alarming proportion so as to drive a ‘normal person’ to contemplate suicide.”

It concluded that the the alleged suicide note “only expressed a state of anguish of the deceased towards the applicants, but it cannot be inferred that the applicants had any intention, that led the deceased to commit suicide.”

It thus directed that in the event of arrest, the lady accused and the alleged current lover, both applicants before the Court in this matter, be released on bail on furnishing a personal bond of ₹50,000/- each with two sureties each of the like amount.

The lady accused had argued that while she had come into contact with the deceased a long time, she had ceased “broken” up with him due to his conduct and harassment. However, “the deceased & his family continuously harassed, stalked and forced the applicant to talk to the deceased,” she submitted.

Further, she stated that she “was constantly threatened with the fear that the deceased will commit suicide as earlier also the deceased had made an attempt to commit suicide, and had tendency of committing suicide.”

Therefore, she had blocked the deceased from her social media, but he still used to contact her from different mobile numbers thereby constantly harassing her.

Facts alleged by the Complainant

An FIR was registered on the deceased person’s death on a complaint by his father alleging that the applicants (the lady and the alleged current lover) had instigated the deceased to commit suicide.

The father alleged that the lady is in a romantic relationship with the deceased and the alleged current lover was a common friend.

The substance of the complaint was that on April 29, 2023, at about 9:30 pm the deceased left the house with his friend in his car, on the pretext of going out for some work.

After this, the deceased called his father (the complainant) and his mother and told them that after leaving the house he had gone to Sector 29, Gurugram, Haryana, where he saw the applicants together and upon enquiring as to why they both were meeting, a scuffle took place between the deceased and the applicants.

The deceased sustained injuries during the scuffle and his car was also damaged by the applicants by throwing bricks.

The father added that he was informed by the deceased that while he was leaving the alleged place of the incident, the applicants instigated him by saying that they had “made physical relations with each other and will get married soon.”

It was alleged that the applicants had also instigated the deceased by stating that he is not man enough and “should commit suicide or else they will upload the images of his broken car window along with the photographs of the deceased with the tittle “Jaisi Nalli Car vaisa Nalla Karan”.”

The next day at around 6:00 a.m. the father spoke to the deceased and found him shivering due to fear and depression. Upon this the father alleged that he called the applicants and asked them not to instigate the deceased, to which the applicant – Aarushi Gupta, allegedly threatened the complainant of implicating him and the deceased in false cases.

The parents of the deceased then went to pick up the car at around 7:00 a.m but allegedly found it damaged and broken glasses of the deceased found lying on the road.

The complainant father then called the alleged current lover (since he had snatched the keys from the deceased) asking for car keys, to which he refused and said that he’ll upload the photograph of the same with a status “Jaise tuti car ki chabivaise hi Karan”.

The complainant father allegedly called an online key maker and also called the deceased to transfer the money for the keymaker online.

The last conversation between the complainant and the deceased is said to have taken place around 9 - 9:30 a.m. Afterwards when the mother of the deceased reached the house at around 11:00 a.m., she found her son’s room half open.

She went to the room and found his body hanging on the fan with a chunni.

Cause Title: Aarushi Gupta v State GNCT of Delhi

[Read Judgment]