SC rejects son’s plea in ex-MP Mohan Delkar’s suicide case

Casting doubt on the authenticity of the suicide note, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging a Bombay High Court order quashing an FIR against nine persons accused of abetting the suicide of former Lok Sabha MP Mohan Delkar in 2021.

“We have found the suicide note to be suspect and we are not convinced that there is any modicum of material in the case to find abetment of suicide,” a Bench of Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran said, upholding the Bombay High Court’s September 8, 2022 verdict.

Delkar, a seven-time MP from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, was found dead in a Mumbai hotel room on February 22, 2021. A 14-page suicide note recovered from the room alleged that he had taken the step due to political pressure.

He had contested as an Independent candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. His alleged suicide note detailed harassment and intimidation, prompting police action against several persons, including senior bureaucrats and political figures.

The Bombay High Court had quashed the case against nine persons, including Praful Khoda Patel, administrator of the Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

The Supreme Court Bench – which had reserved its verdict on August 4 on a petition filed by Abhinav Delkar, son of the late MP – stressed that harassment, without a direct and proximate link to the suicide, was insufficient to sustain charges of abetment under Section 306 IPC.

It said, “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.”

The Bench added, “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. We find no such instigation on the part of the accused in this case, or a definitive abetment to suicide, as alleged in the FIR.”

It further observed, “There arises a cloud on the suicide note, when looking at the admitted statements recorded in the proceedings of the Committee of Privileges and also the manner in which the note was introduced in the case. Before the Committee of Privileges, no reference was made to the various allegations in the suicide note, against the named officers.”