The Karnataka High Court has refused to quash criminal proceedings against a man accused of abetment to suicide under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, holding that the allegations, if taken cumulatively, prima facie disclose the ingredients of the offence and must be adjudicated at trial. The single judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed the petition seeking quashing of proceedings under Sections 75 (sexual harassment), 78 (stalking), and 108 (abetment to suicide) of the BNS, 2023.
The court observed that the case could not be characterised as one where the allegations were bereft of the ingredients of abetment. It emphasized that this was not a case of an angry word spoken in the heat of the moment, nor an isolated quarrel followed by suicide after a considerable hiatus, nor a case where the accused was sought to be prosecuted merely because he figured in the emotional landscape of the deceased. The allegations, the court said, travelled much farther.
The bench noted that the complaint and charge sheet, if read as a whole, prima facie depicted the deceased being progressively cornered—her refusal allegedly ignored, her privacy threatened, her workplace invaded by pursuit, her matrimonial prospects repeatedly sabotaged, and her apprehension that she would not be permitted to lead an independent life allegedly reinforced by the accused’s continued conduct. The court clarified that it was not deciding the truth of these allegations at this stage, but only whether they disclosed a prima facie case requiring trial.
Regarding the mens rea aspect, the court stated that it was yet to be ascertained in the trial. It referred to the facts that a 22-year-old woman pursuing nursing in Mysuru had allegedly committed suicide due to the accused’s acts of coercion and harassment, marking her second suicide attempt after being saved earlier that month.