Suicide of Chartered Accountant Following Disciplinary Action: Gujarat High Court Clears Abetment Charges of Employer

An FIR was registered against the owners of the firm viz. Ramesh Sudani, that on 23^rd June 2020 the deceased person was scolded by the employer since she was found at some other office during the office hours with a view to maintaining office discipline, saying it was instigation to commit suicide as the deceased (Chartered Accountant) resigned online after the incident and committed suicide after a week. In the instant case, the deceased committed suicide on 30^th June 2020 whereas the father of the deceased lodged the complaint on 9^th July 2020.

The court held that the complaint was filed more than a week after the suicide. Also, the applicant’s action was instrumental in the suicide of the deceased person or the deceased would have taken that drastic action immediately after it. Further, there is no suicide note found from the deceased person.

The Court relied on Vaijnath Knodiba Khandke vs. the State of Maharashtra and another, in which Honourable the Supreme Court observed that “if some work is assigned by the employer to employee, merely on that count it cannot be said that there was any guilty mind or criminal intent.” The action of the employer was taken in good faith to maintain office discipline and cannot be registered as an offense under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code. If the employer is prosecuted then it would pose threat to most of the employers and office discipline will not be maintained in the offices as the employers would remain under threat that if any drastic action is taken by an employee, in that case, for no reason, an employer would be prosecuted under criminal law. The court held that merely on the basis of suspicion, the petitioners cannot be prosecuted under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code as such there is no material against the petitioner to implicate them under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code.

Therefore, as no material was found against the applicants to indicate that they have either instigated the deceased or abetted the deceased to commit suicide, the present FIR was quashed and set aside by the Hon’ble High Court.

Therefore, the impugned FIR registered with Sarthana Police Station, Surat City was thereby quashed. Also, Criminal Case No.929 of 2021 arising out of the said FIR pending before the learned 3rd Additional District Judge, Surat was also thereby quashed. As the main matter was disposed of the connected application for stay did not survive.