HC quashes abetment to suicide FIR against former MLA Hardial Singh Kamboj

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has quashed the FIR registered against former MLA Hardial Singh Kamboj, his son Nirbhai Singh and two others for abetment to suicide under Section 306 of the IPC

The Bench hekd that there was no material to even prima facie suggest a proximate nexus between their alleged acts and the suicide.

Allowing a bunch of petitions filed by the accused, the Bench asserted: "Merely because the deceased nursed a grudge against the petitioners or felt perturbed on account of their alleged acts done months prior to the day of suicide, it cannot be termed an instigation to commit the suicide. Much less would the acts have driven him to such a position that he had no other choice but to commit suicide."

The FIR in the matter was registered at Rajpura City police station in Patiala district on November 11, 2022, based on a complaint by Anita Sharma, whose husband Ramesh Sharma, who had committed suicide.

She levelled allegations against Kamboj, his son, Bhupinder Kapoor and Lovekesh Kapoor.

After examining the FIR contents and a video purportedly prepared by the now deceased, the Bench ruled that even if the allegations were taken at face value, they failed to meet the legal ingredients of abetment to suicide.

Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya observed that the alleged acts on part of the petitioners had occurred much prior in time and lacked the required proximity to the suicide.

The petitioners were represented by senior advocate Vijay Kumar Jindal and counsel

Akshay Jindal, Abhishek Shukla, Vijayveer Singh and Abhinav Oberoi

The Bench added the investigation too had not unearthed any material establishing intention to abet or actual instigation on part of the petitioners:

"It is not even the allegation that the commission of crime was soon after the petitioners’ instigation… The investigation carried out could also not bring out any evidence against the petitioners to establish ingredients of the alleged offence against them."

The court further noted that the challan or final report merely contained routine documents like the complainant’s statement, the suicide note, expert’s report, and post-mortem findings which confirmed the cause of death as aluminium phosphide consumption.

Holding that continuation of criminal proceedings against the petitioners would amount to abuse of process of law, the court allowed the petitions and quashed the FIR and all consequential proceedings arising therefrom.