Aurangabad bench of Bombay high court
The case stemmed from the May 13, 2023, suicide of Sunil Ingole. Three days later, his widow lodged an FIR at Vimantal police station in Nanded, naming six people under sections 306 (abetment of suicide) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The alleged “go die” remark, it said, had to be evaluated in the context of the overall circumstances and the evidence available on record. Observing that forcing Patil to face a criminal trial “in the teeth of the evidence available” would amount to an abuse of the process of law, HC granted him parity with the co-accused and quashed the proceedings against him. The prosecution opposed the plea, contending that sufficient material existed to put Patil on trial. Relying on Supreme Court judgments in Mahendra Awase, M Mohan, Sanju alias Sanjay Singh Sengar and Ramesh Kumar, the court reiterated that mere harassment or casual remarks, without a positive act directly linked to the suicide, did not constitute abetment. It further observed that words spoken in anger or frustration, without an intention to provoke suicide, could not automatically be treated as instigation. The court held that the sessions judge had failed to properly apply these settled legal principles.
Justice Sushil M Ghodeswar allowed a criminal revision application filed by Balaji Kishanrao Patil, setting aside a May 13, 2026, order of a Nanded sessions court that had rejected his plea for discharge.
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar : Aurangabad bench of Bombay high court has quashed an abetment-to-suicide case against a man accused of telling a debtor to “go die” if he could not repay borrowed money, holding that the material on record did not prima facie establish the offence under sections 306 and 34 of IPC.