The Supreme Court has ruled that a person cannot be held responsible for abetment of suicide merely because they refused to marry a live-in partner who later died by suicide. The Court stressed that there must be material showing intentional instigation or knowledge that the refusal was likely to result in suicide.
A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran quashed criminal proceedings against six accused, including the woman’s partner and members of his family.
The proceedings stemmed from an FIR registered in 2022 under Section 306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The deceased woman and the first accused had reportedly known each other since childhood, entered into a consensual relationship and lived together for about three months.
According to the prosecution, the man had initially agreed to marry her and his family had also accepted the proposal. The situation allegedly changed after objections from people close to the family. It was alleged that the man’s parents, sister and others pressured him to call off the relationship.
The woman subsequently told her elder sister over the phone that the man had refused to marry her and that she would take her own life if the marriage did not happen the following day.
An altercation later took place at the man’s residence. The woman allegedly went into a room, locked the door and died by suicide.
The accused sought discharge from the case, but the trial court rejected the plea in December 2024. The Telangana High Court subsequently declined to interfere with that decision, observing that the factual disputes would have to be examined at trial.
The Supreme Court took a different view after examining the allegations and material on record.
The Bench noted that a breakup or refusal to marry can affect people differently and that a subsequent suicide cannot automatically transform such conduct into abetment. In the Court’s assessment, there was no material indicating that the accused had refused marriage with the intention of pushing the woman towards suicide, nor was there a basis to attribute such knowledge to them.
The Court found no act of instigation capable of satisfying the requirements of the offence and held that the alleged conduct, even if accepted at face value, did not establish abetment.
The criminal proceedings against all six accused were consequently quashed.