This story is from March 20, 2015

HC absolves man of abetting staffer’s suicide

Six years after being accused of abetting the suicide of his employee, the managing director of a travel company could breathe easy as the Bombay high court discarded an alleged suicide note and dropped all charges for want of evidence.
HC absolves man of abetting staffer’s suicide
MUMBAI: Six years after being accused of abetting the suicide of his employee, the managing director of a travel company could breathe easy as the Bombay high court discarded an alleged suicide note and dropped all charges for want of evidence. The HC dropped the charge against Wasim Shaikh and two other co-accused, Dilip Dhotre and Salim, in the case.
The HC held an alleged suicide note written on “chits” of paper which a hospital ward boy allegedly handed over to the dead man’s kin was no evidence.
The ‘note’ alleged humiliation and threat by his superiors. Police in Pune, where the suicide took place, had relied on these chits as did a sessions court to press abetment charges against the employer without bothering to even question the “ward boy’’, who, the HC observed, “remains untraced’’.
“The sessions judge overlooked that the chits were allegedly found by a ward boy whose statement was not recorded,’’ said Justice Abhay Thipsay.
Even if a person commits suicide because of the torments of an accused, the accused cannot be said to have abetted the commission of suicide, unless the accused intends or can reasonably foresee that a suicide would result, said Justice Thipsay. The HC order comes at a time when registration of abetment to suicide cases are on the rise. “The other witnesses were only stating that the ward boy had told them that chits were found in the pocket of the deceased,’’ said the HC.
Advocate K M Mhatre, who appeared for Shaikh, said when the police did a spot panchanama, no note was found. “The charge has no basis. The note is not genuine, nor are the accusations of threat or humiliation,” he argued. The judge agreed.
Shaikh had to move HC after the Pune sessions court in January 2012 rejected his discharge application. S V Gajare, prosecutor for the state, opposed the discharge plea.
The HC perused the entire chargesheet and proceedings. A 26-year-old driver and supervisor at the firm went missing in May 2005 and three days later his body was found on the terrace of the building where he lived. His death was due to the consumption of a poisonous substance.

The high court said it was plain that even the handwriting on the alleged note does not tally with that of the dead man. Yet, the sessions judge had decided to go into its genuineness only during trial as there was some prima facie evidence against the accused.
“The sessions court is not expected to go merely by what the police have alleged,” the judge said.
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About the Author
Swati Deshpande

Swati Deshpande is Senior editor at The Times of India, Mumbai, where she has been covering courts for over a decade. She is passionate about law and works towards enlightening people about their statutory, legal and fundamental rights. She makes it her job to decipher for the public the truth, be it in an intricate civil dispute or in a gruesome criminal case.

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