Abatement of Suicide

A Bihar based advocate has filed a case against a number of Bollywood influential people alleging that actor Sushant Singh Rajput was driven to suicide by an influential gang that virtually controlled the industry.

Advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha citing the reasons that the late actor was removed from seven films and the said treatment forced him to take the extreme step of death by suicide, has filed an abetment case against eight people from the industry, including Karan Johar, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Salman Khan and Ekta Kapoor.

Ojha said the case was filed against Sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation). "In the complaint, I have alleged that Sushant Singh Rajput was removed from around seven films and some of his films were not released. Such a situation was created which forced him to take the extreme step,” the advocate said.

Responding to the allegations, producer Ekta Kapoor said that she is “beyond upset at how convoluted theories can be. In fact, I was the one who launched him in this industry.”

The Maharashtra government too had decided to probe the angles of professional rivalry along with Sushant’s reported clinical depression. Sushant who was found hanging at his Bandra residence on Sunday (June 14, 2020) in an apparent suicide bid, was cremated on Monday (June 15, 2020) at the Pawan Hans crematorium in Mumbai.

A person is guilty of abetment when:

1. He instigates someone to commit suicide (or)

2. He is part of a conspiracy to make a person commit suicide (or)

3. He intentionally helps the victim to commit suicide by doing an act or by not doing something that he was bound to do.
   

According to Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may tend to one year, or with fine, or with both.

This section was however debated in the case of Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab [(1996) 2 S.C.C. 648: (1996) S.C.C. 374 and was argued that the section debased the Article 21 of The Constitution of India which provided with every Indian citizen the right to life. It was further opposed that if a person possess the right to life, then he must also have the right to terminate his life. However, it was finally declared that there exists no ground to prove the unconstitutionality of Section 309 IPC. Furthermore, in P. Rathinam [P. Rathinam V Union of India (1994) 3 S.C.C. 394 : (1994) S.C.C. 740 case, it was held that the construction made of Article 21 to incorporate the right to die cannot be accepted on any grounds, not even after considering Article 14 of The Indian Constitution. It was clearly stated that Section 309 IPC cannot be treated unconstitutional as the Right to Life is a natural right provided in Article 21 but suicide is an unnatural termination life and therefore inconsistent with the concept of Right to Life.

Section 309 of the IPC is based on the principle that human life is valuable to both, themselves including their family as well as to the State which protects them but, is questioned many times as it is covered under Chapter XVI of the Offences Affecting the Human Body and is considered a crime. The person, who attempts suicide and fails, is sent to jail to mingle with other criminals instead of providing him with psychiatric attention and bring him back as a healthy citizen. Hence punishing an individual for attempting suicide would do more harm than good as imprisonment will only have an adverse effect on their mental health.