In the face of the intense debate over the necessity to arrest Haryana’s former director general of police SPS Rathore for allegedly driving teenaged Ruchika to suicide about two decades ago, the Supreme Court has come out with a ruling that stresses on the motive of an accused under section 306 IPC (abetment to suicide).
Ruchika ended her life three years after the disgraced DGP molested her. He also slapped criminal cases on her brother Ashu, who remained behind the bars for a long time. Rathore faced a six-month imprisonment on the charge of molesting the budding tennis player and was immediately granted bail.
Since then there has been a public outcry against Rathore and the government has been under pressure to haul him up for driving the girl to end her life, a charge that had been dropped by the Supreme Court.
In a judgment of far reaching consequences that might also have a strong bearing on Rathore’s likely trial under section 306 IPC, the apex court said on Tuesday, “…in order to convict a person under section 306 (abetment to suicide) there has to be a clear mens rea (clear intent) to commit the offence.”
“The abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing a thing,” a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and AK Patnaik said.
Saying so, the court acquitted a landlord, Gangula Mohan Reddy, who had been convicted by a trial court and the Andhra Pradesh high court for abetting the suicide of a land labour, Ramulu. The two courts had found Reddy guilty under section 306 IPC and sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs10,000.
Reddy had levelled a gold theft charge on Ramulu two days before the latter’s death. The apex court ordered Reddy to be released immediately.
