The Bombay High Court’s Nagpur division on Thursday held in the case of Lata Pramod Dangre v. State of Maharashtra that a daughter’s repeated financial requests to her father will not constitute the crime of aiding suicide.
A First Information Report (FIR) filed against a lady for allegedly aiding her father’s suicide was rejected by a panel of Justices Manish Pitale and Govind Sanap after she repeatedly demanded money from her father for her mother, the dead man’s second wife.
According to the court, the daughter’s claimed frequent requests for money from her mother do not constitute the crime of Section 306 (abetting suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
“It is notable that the petitioner in this instance was purportedly placing demands on the father for a piece of the agricultural property or financial assistance through her mother. We believe that such frequent requests or a claimed rise in the demands cannot support a conclusion that the demands were made with the goal to push the father to commit suicide, at least initially “stated the bench.
Crime Circumstances:
The bench stated that in these situations, the Court must also consider the surrounding circumstances, which may have an impact on the alleged behavior of the accused and the deceased person’s mental state.
“It would be a stretch to conclude that the accused as the daughter, via her mother—the co-accused—intentionally behaved in such a way to cause the deceased to commit suicide. The demand in and of itself may have been, at worst, unreasonable or a demand that the father was unable to satisfy.
Additionally, the deceased had two spouses and children from each of them, therefore it cannot be stated that the petitioner’s efforts to influence the deceased’s decision to commit suicide were only motivated by financial gain “opinionated the bench.
A petition was being heard by the bench from a lady who had been arrested for allegedly helping her father commit suicide. The lady, a daughter of the deceased’s second wife, was charged with repeatedly pressing her father for money on behalf of her mother.
Money Demand
On September 14, 2021, the father committed himself. In his suicide note, he accused the petitioner and his second wife of psychologically abusing him by making monetary demands.
It gave the example of a situation where the dead had chosen to put $25,000 into a fixed deposit in the second wife’s name.
However, the daughter of the petitioner persuaded him to raise it to 5 lakh. He managed to gather the money somehow, but it was later raised to $15 lakh.
The bench declared that the deceased’s distress about claimed harassment by the petitioner and her mother was expressed in the suicide note.
“But it also highlights the fact that the petitioner’s mother, the second wife, was at worst pressing the dead for money or a piece of the deceased’s agricultural property at the petitioner’s urging. The deceased’s son-in-law, who is wed to the deceased’s daughter from his first marriage, is the informant in this case “Bench took notice.
The Court also took into account the fact that the suicide note, in this case, was drafted on September 9, 2021, but he actually committed the crime five days later, on September 14, 2021.
The bench concluded that there was no proximate connection between the extreme action taken by the deceased and the harassment over the recording of the suicide note that was purportedly ordered by the petitioner.
The FIR filed against the daughter was thus dismissed by the court.
