Man gets anticipatory bail in abetment to suicide case

Bhopal/Jabalpur: The MP high court granted anticipatory bail to Divyansh Singh Thakur, an inmate of MP Shooting Academy, accused of abetting the suicide of a friend, whom he accused of stealing money from the dashboard of his car.
While counsel for the accused argued that Divyansh only expressed suspicion that the deceased stole the money when he opened his car to take out his belongings and asked him to return the money, under pressure, he committed suicide. On the other hand, the govt counsel and the lawyer appearing for the parents of the deceased argued that according to the suicide note, statements of witnesses, and other material collected by the prosecution, the accused and other accomplices in the case were pressuring the deceased to return the money. Under compelling circumstances, left with no other option, he committed suicide. A case for abetment of suicide under section 107 of the BNS was rightly registered against the accused for creating a situation that led the deceased to end his life.
After hearing both sides, Justice Sanjay Dwivedi said that the accused and deceased were known to each other, and some money of the accused got stolen from the dashboard of his car. The deceased was the only person to have opened the car before the incident to take out his belongings, and therefore all suspicion was upon him that he must have stolen the money. Noting that the accused is 20 years old and the deceased was only 18, and both were award winners in sports, the judge said that the incident could disturb the emotions of anyone. However, the facts of the case suggest that pressure was indeed created on the deceased to return the money, but it was not with the intention to make him commit suicide.
"I can understand that the deceased must have been under pressure that if he were proved guilty of stealing money, it would be very humiliating for him, but handling such a situation of pressure depends upon the mental status of an individual as some can resist and wriggle out from it whereas some cannot. However, from the material collected, prima facie, I do not find any such indication that the situation was so unbearable and the applicant was compelling the deceased to commit suicide," said the judge while granting him anticipatory bail on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and solvent surety of the same amount at the police station concerned.