The Gujarat High Court has quashed criminal charges against the trustee of a school and a teacher, who were accused of slapping and humiliating an 18-year-old student, which allegedly led him to commit suicide.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Divyesh Joshi observed that in order to attract offence under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), there must be instigation in some form on part of the accused to cause the deceased to commit suicide.
The act of instigation must be of such intensity that it was intended to push the deceased to such a position under which he or she had no choice but to commit suicide. Besides, such instigation must be in close proximity to the act of committing suicide, noted the single-judge Bench.
It said in the present case, there was no material on record to show that the accused instigated the student to commit suicide.
The High Court ruled that taking the contents of the FIR and the statements of the witnesses as correct, it was impossible to conclude that the applicants instigated the deceased to commit suicide by way of so-called humiliation meted out to the deceased.
By no stretch of the imagination, the alleged acts of the applicants could amount to instigation to commit suicide, it added.
The High Court said it was unfortunate that a young student lost his life and that it was conscious of the pain and suffering being undergone by his mother. However, as observed by the Supreme Court in the case of Geo Verghese (supra), the sympathy of the Court and pain & suffering of the complainant (student’s mother) could not translate into a legal remedy, much less a criminal prosecution, it added.
The matter pertained to a Class 12 science student, who committed suicide on January 22, 2016. The mother of the student stated that she later received information from fellow students about certain events that took place before the student’s death.
As per the information received, the deceased’s batchmate told the trustee that the earlier teaching staff of the school was better than the new staff. The accused teacher is said to have overheard this complaint and assaulted the student who complained.
The said accused was then alleged to have made it clear that he will keep beating other students of the class in the coming days.
A few days before the suicide, a commotion occurred behind the bench of the deceased student, for which the accused teacher slapped the student thrice. When the deceased asked the teacher as to why he was being slapped without any fault on his part, the teacher is said to have retorted that he would inform the reason by evening.
When the student persisted with his query, the teacher allegedly threw the student out of class and sent him to the trustee, who made the student stay back in the school premises till 6 pm.
On the next day, the student was asked to sit idly for two hours on the fourth floor of the school building. After two hours, the trustee told the student that his parents have been informed about his behaviour. Soon after this, he committed suicide.
A criminal case was filed against the school’s trustee and the teacher. In their petition to quash this case, the accused contended that the entire case was based on hearsay.
The High Court said there was no intention on part of the accused teacher to abet the commission of suicide by one of his own students and therefore, no mens rea can be attributed.
In the present case, the very element of abetment was missing as under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, there should be correct mens rea to commit the offence, the single-judge Bench observed and quashed the proceedings.
The accused was represented by Senior Advocate Asim Pandya, along with Advocate Gaurav Vyas, while the complainant was represented by Advocate Utpal M Panchal.
Additional Public Prosecutor Dhawan Jayswal appeared for the state.