The Supreme Court on Friday sought the assistance of the Attorney General in examining the clash between two legal provisions, one criminalising the attempt to suicide and other treating the act of trying to take one’s own life as a manifestation of great stress.
Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code categorises the attempt to commit suicide as an offence. The punishment for attempting to take one’s own life is imprisonment up to a year.
However, Section 115 of the Mental Healthcare Act of 2017 sought to override the colonial penal code. It said that “notwithstanding Section 309 IPC, any person who attempts to commit suicide shall be presumed, unless otherwise proved, to have severe stress”. Such a person will not be tried or punished under Section 309 IPC.
“An attempt to commit suicide is a punishable offence under Section 309 of IPC. However, we find that the Section 115 of the Mental Healthcare Act adversely impacts Section 309 of IPC,” Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde, leading a three-judge Bench, addressed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.
The Bench was hearing a plea filed by activist Sangeeta Dogra regarding how an elephant in a zoo was made to suffer because a man jumped into its enclosure in a bid to end his own life.
The discussion then touched on the Santhara code (fasting to death) followed by the Jain community.
But the CJI differed with the idea of putting Santhara on the same page as suicide, saying “the intention in Santhara is not to commit suicide, but it is to liberate yourself from this miserable world”.
The court suggested the name of senior advocate A.N.S. Nadkarni as the amicus curiae in the case.
