Section 309 of IPC (An overview)

Section 309 of IPC (An overview)-- Author unknown

MENS REA (guilty mind) is the basis for every penalization .Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code punishes attempts to commit suicide and any act towards it. The attempt to commit suicide also needs a guilty mind, because mens rea has to be read into, unless specifically excluded, for penalising.
Foisting a criminal case alleging attempt to commit suicide on Medha Patkar is nothing but the misuse of law by the state for political purposes. Was she ending life unnaturally? She never expressed any intention to die. Her avowed purpose of fast was to pressure the government on issues concerning the Narmada. Any attempt to resolve a social problem cannot be treated as an invitation to death.
Even British rulers did not resort to section 309 against fasting national leaders. History is replete with incidents of Mahatma Gandhi and others launching fast unto death. While on fast, Potti Sriramulu died for Andhra Pradesh during the 1950s. Neither the British nor Indian administrators implicated them for this crime. Now section 309 is a misused weapon in the state's armoury against agitations.
Invoking this penal provision is basically wrong. If the state's response to peaceful fast is the foisting of section 309 it will amount to an invitation to violent movement.

Penal consequences

Ramsundar Duby who was on fast (AIR 1963 All 262) was prosecuted and convicted for an attempt to commit suicide. The Allahabad High Court set aside the conviction as the evidence fell short of the crime. He never declared that he was on fast unto death. There is no apex court verdict on this question. But at least in Uttar Pradesh, where the Allahabad verdict is law, the judiciary is inclined to consider a declared fast unto death a crime. Not so in New Delhi.
Suicide as such is not a crime under the code. The U.K. made a law declaring completed suicide as no crime. Prescribing the duty of self-preservation is the purpose of penalising suicide attempts. Only intentional self-destruction of life should be brought under the frame of this definition.
In Queen Emperor v Ramakka (1884) ILR 8 Mad 5, it was held that those attempting to end their lives because of family discord, distraction, loss of near and dear relation or any other cause of like nature overcoming the instinct of self-preservation, should not be held guilty. Renowned jurist Tej Bahadur Sapru in his Indian Penal Code (at page 258) said they deserve sympathy, indulgence and consolation instead of prosecution.

Does it have deterrence effect?
Justice P.B. Sawant in the Maruti Sripati Dubal case (1987) (Criminal Law Journal 743 Bombay) saw no justification in using section 309 as a deterrent. He said: If the purpose of the prescribed punishment is to prevent the prospective suicides by deterrence, it is difficult to understand how the same can be achieved by punishing those who have made the attempts. No deterrence is further going to hold back those who want to die for a special or political cause or to leave the world either because of the loss of interest in life or for self-deliverance.
The constitutional Validity of the very legal provision!


The Supreme Court in 1994 struck down section 309 as unconstitutional on the ground that it amounted to punishing the victim-accused twice. This verdict was, however, reversed in 1996.
Deriving a discriminatory power from section 309 for selective prosecutions is dangerous. The section should be reframed to specify a clear intention as prerequisite to charge.
If not, it will continue to remain a weapon in the hands of the police to intrude into the privacy and liberty of any person or family on mere suspicion. Without granting the right to die, this section should be amended to make only intentional attempts to end life punishable, so that social agitations such as the one by the NBA may not be interpreted as `suicidal.