Only Genuine Perceptions Revealed Before Death: Calcutta HC Declines To Quash Abetment Case Against Wife Implicated In Husband’s 'Suicide Note'

The Calcutta High Court has dismissed a Section 482 CrPC application filed by a wife, for quashing criminal proceedings initiated against her under Section 306 IPC for abetment to suicide of her deceased husband.

The younger brother of the deceased, upon his suicidal death in 2015, approached the jurisdictional police station and filed an FIR, alleging that the victim had ended his life due to the "severe mental torture" perpetrated by the present petitioners. The police as well as the complainant relied heavily on a "suicide note" left behind by the deceased, allegedly implicating the petitioners. 

In refusing to quash the proceedings upon observing that a cognizable case had been prima facie made out against the petitioners, a single bench of Justice Rai Chattopadhyay held:

A person, immediately before his death would only let his genuine perceptions to reveal to the world after his death and so he writes. Though the [deceased] mentioned no other person [is] responsible for his death, at the same time he mentions that his wife or child should not be allowed to see his dead body. All these are triggering to the only fact that a cognizable case [has] been prima facie made out against the petitioners. [Thus] not enough ground is available for quashing the criminal case.

Petitioners argued that the FIR or any other material did not reveal details of the commission of any offence by them. It was submitted that there was no direct instigation of the victim by the petitioners and that circumstances prior to commission of suicide would not be considered of that gravity or intensity to be found as the victim was left with no other alternative due to the same except committing suicide.

It was submitted that there was no intentional aiding, or positive act by the petitioner in order to sustain the allegations made in the FIR. 

Counsel argued that the petitioner, along with her minor child had been living separately from the victim and there was no direct contact or communication between them, using which the accused may have been able to instigate the victim. 

State, on the other hand, argued that the existence of the four-page long 'suicide note' and a plain reading of it would suggest that the victim suffered from pain at the behest of the petitioners in the moments before his death. 

It was submitted that the note had described in elaborate detail, the ways in which the petitioners and each of them have attributed their parts instigating or prompting the victim to commit suicide.

Upon hearing the parties, the court assessed its powers of interference under Section 482 CrPC, and observed that it could not go into the nuances of the available evidence and conduct a "mini-trial" when the trial court was in seisin of the issue.

It further held that the presence of material ingredients of an offence as alleged by the prosecution, would prevent a Court from coming to a finding that the case against the petitioners was a perversity and deserved to be quashed. 

On the contrary upon finding the FIR and the available materials to have disclosed an offence, the Court is duty bound to allow the trial to proceed to unearth the truth, it held. 

 In determining whether there was any instigation by the petitioner against the victim, the Court looked at a brief account of the victims life.

It observed that the victim and the petitioner were married in 2014, and had a minor girl child. Court noted that after a year and a half of marriage, he began living separately from his wife and child, till the time that he committed suicide. 

Court further perused the suicide note left behind by the victim and observed that in it, he had written that his wife and daughter are like dead persons, and expressed his wish for them not to attend his funeral.

Lastly, he writes, that he does not commit suicide according to his own volition, but due to the pressure inflicted by his matrimonial family and that his wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law and other family members are responsible for the same. The ‘suicide note’ recovered, in this case, cannot be seen to be a simple declaration of self-condemnation of the said person. It also primarily reveals some other shades of emotions of the person, which cannot be undermined in any way, the Court held. 

Accordingly, in observing that due to the presence of such prima facie material implicating the accused, the Court refused to quash the proceedings against them,  and directed the Trial Court to commence the trial within four weeks. 

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Cal) 336

Case: Balbina Tandon & Ors. v The State of West Bengal & Ors.

Case No: C.R.R 2798 of 2016

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