Abhinav Mohan Delkar vs State of Maharashtra 2025 INSC 990 - S.306 IPC - Abetment Of Suicide - Mens Rea

Indian Penal Code 1860 - Section 107,306 - Even if there is allegation of constant harassment, continued over a long period; to bring in the ingredients of Section 306 read with Section 107, still there has to be a proximate prior act to clearly find that the suicide was the direct consequence of such continuous harassment, the last proximate incident having finally driven the subject to the extreme act of taking one’s life - Mens Rea - What drove the victim to that extreme act, often depends on individual predilections; but whether it is goaded, definitively and demonstrably, by a particular act of another, is the test to find mens rea. Merely because the victim was continuously harassed and at one point, he or she succumbed to the extreme act of taking his life cannot by itself result in finding a positive instigation constituting abetment. Mens rea cannot be gleaned merely by what goes on in the mind of the victim.- The victim may have felt that there was no alternative or option, but to take his life, because of what another person did or said; which cannot lead to a finding of mens rea and resultant abetment on that other person. What constitutes mens rea is the intention and purpose of the alleged perpetrator as discernible from the conscious acts or words and the attendant circumstances, which in all probability could lead to such an end.The real intention of the accused and whether he intended by his action to at least possibly drive the victim to suicide, is the sure test. Did the thought of goading the victim to suicide occur in the mind of the accused or whether it can be inferred from the facts and circumstances arising in the case, as the true test of mens rea would depend on the facts of each case. The social status, the community setting, the relationship between the parties and other myriad factors would distinguish one case from another. However harsh or severe the harassment, unless there is a conscious deliberate intention, mens rea, to drive another person to suicidal death, there cannot be a finding of abetment under Section 306- True, a person unable to bear the pressure or withstand a humiliation or unable to oppose, may succumb to the extreme act of ending his own life, in desperation; but that would not necessarily mean that the alleged perpetrator had an intention to lead the victim to eventual death by his own or her own hands- Even a rebuke to “go, kill yourself”; often a rustic expression against distasteful conduct, cannot by itself be found to have the ingredients to charge an offence of abetment to suicide. (Para 22,23,40)