DECRIMINALISATION OF ATTEMPT TO

SUICIDEWILL IT LOWER

NUMBER OF SUICIDES?

Life is a stage with one entrance but many exits. Among those, suicide is one exit having a long ancestry. In 1968, the World Health Organisation defined suicidal act as “the injury with varying degree of lethal intent” and that suicide may be defined as “a suicidal act with fatal outcome”. Suicidal acts with non fatal outcome are labelled by World Health Organisation as “attempted suicide.” In recent times, attempted suicide, though a failed act, has gained more importance than the suicide which is the successful act because for this there is no offender who can be brought within the purview of law. In India, attempt to suicide is made punishable under section 309 of Indian Penal Code, 1860.

INTRODUCTION

Recently, the Indian Government has decided to repeal Section 309 of the IPC, thereby decriminalising the attempt to commit suicide. This decision of the government has rekindled the debate of using penal measures to veer people from their path who attempt suicide. The government had decided to drop Section 309 from the IPC after 18 states and 4 Union territories backed the recommendation of the Law Commission of India in this regard. Law Commission of India, in its 210th Report, had recommended that Section 309 (attempt to commit suicide) of IPC needs to be effaced from the statute book. As law and order is a state subject, views of States/UTs were requested on the recommendations of the Law Commission. 18 states and 4 Union territory administrations supported that Section 309 of the IPC may be deleted. Keeping in view the responses from the states/UTs, it was decided to delete Section 309 of IPC from the statute book. The law panel, in its 210th report submitted in 2008, had noted that attempt to suicide may be regarded more as a manifestation of a diseased condition of mind, deserving treatment and care rather than punishment, and accordingly recommended to the government to initiate the process for repeal of the "anachronistic" Section 309.

Incidentally, at least five states — Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab and Sikkim — expressed reservations against the move to de-criminalise suicide bids. Bihar wanted a distinction drawn between persons driven to suicide due to medical illnesses and suicide bombers who fail to blow themselves up or terrorists who consume cyanide pills to wipe out evidence, and wanted the former to be covered by a separate legislation. However, the home ministry officials clarified that such a person would still face charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, whether or not he succeeds in his mission.

Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Sikkim argued that decriminalising attempt to suicide would handicap law enforcement agencies in dealing with persons who resort to fast unto death or self-immolation to press the government/ authorities to accept their unreasonable or illegitimate demands. Such people, they argued, can no longer be booked for attempt to suicide or be force-fed. A home ministry official pointed out the case of Manipuri anti-AFSPA activist Irom Sharmila, who has been on indefinite fast for the last 14 years but was kept alive by being charged with attempt to suicide and forcibly administered intravenous fluids.

Section 309 of the IPC is a highly insensitive provision that requires a person to die successfully, or be prosecuted. Besides being an absolute abuse of human autonomy, punishing survivors of suicide attempts is not the hallmark of a civilized society. As the largest democracy in the world, and as one of the most stable regimes in South Asia, India has the moral responsibility to pave the way for legal reforms. So far the new Indian government has made all the right choices, but will they begin to act in the full spirit of what they say?

Over the last decade, the suicide rate has gone up by a good 25%. India’s courts have however over the last 2 decades, slowly woken up to the reality that in a misguided effort at preserving life, they have been doing everything to facilitate just the opposite. In the case of P. Rathinam v. Union of India the Supreme Court, speaking with respect to articles 21 and 14 of the Indian constitution said: “… we state that section 309 needs to be effaced from our statute books to humanize our penal laws. It is a cruel and inhuman provision, and it may result in punishing a person again who has already suffered agony and would be undergoing ignominy because of his failure to commit suicide.”

Again, in a path–breaking decision in Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug v. Union of India & Ors., given on March 7, 2011, a bench consisting of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra, said: "We are of the opinion that although section 309 Indian Penal Code has been held to be constitutionally valid in Gian Kaur's case, the time has come when it should be deleted by Parliament as it has become anachronistic… We therefore recommend to Parliament to consider the feasibility of deleting section 309 from the Indian Penal Code.”

The year 2014 ended on a good note for many legal activists, health and social workers when, during the first week of December, the Indian government finally acceded to their long-standing request of decriminalising attempted suicides in India.

Any benefit we could accrue from retaining a regressive provision like section 309 disappears in the face of the sheer cruelty and harassment it forces upon the general population. A common image the decriminalisation debate regularly brings to mind is that of the Manipuri peace activist Ms. Irom Sharmila, who is seeking revocation of India’s draconian armed forces (special powers) act by means of indefinite fasting. Section 309 has consistently been used to suppress peaceful voices of dissent such as hers.

According to numbers provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), suicide is one of the three leading causes of death worldwide among those in the most economically productive bracket of 15–44 years, and the second leading cause of death in the 15–19 years age group. The majority of such deaths occur in low and middle income countries. Back in 1999, the WHO estimated that by 2020, people who attempt suicide world-wide would be 10 to 20 times more than those who succeed in committing it. In such a scenario, the ensuing statistics can be an extremely disturbing number for a country with a population as large as India’s.

India’s National Crime Records Bureau estimated in its Accidental Deaths & Suicides Report of 2013 that more than 1 lakh (1,34,799) people committed suicide due to a variety of factors in 2012. It was further recorded that ‘family problems’ (24%) and ’illness’ (19.6%) together accounted for 43.6% of total suicides. But that in itself is a conservative statistic. There are strong reasons to believe that in many instances, death by suicide goes unreported. In many rural areas of India, death by suicide is frequently reported as due to illness or accident. This is done to avoid police investigations, the possibility of the body being mutilated during post – mortem examinations and due to the social stigma involved. Thus, suicide statistics derived from police records are often severely under–reported in India.

ALARMING STATISTICS

It is most intriguing and frustrating to observe that our penal laws which are nothing but the handiwork of Britishers have by and large remained untouched even after more than 60 years of independence. What a pity that Britishers have themselves amended their penal laws and decriminalised attempt to suicide way back in 1961 but we are yet to even deliberate on taking any action on this decisive issue which subjects an already tormented person to further punishment and ignominy!

CONCLUSION

Certainly, we should not be the copycat of Britishers but can we deny that increasingly more and more countries like Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Oregon and Washington in USA and Thailand are even legalising euthanasia or mercy killing for terminally ill persons? Can we deny the decriminalization of attempted suicide by all countries in Europe, North America and Canada? Can we deny that it is only a handful of countries in the world like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and India who still punish attempt to suicide under their penal laws? Are we still waiting only to be the last country in the world to decriminalise attempt to suicide? Let us not forget that Section 309 tantamount to brazenly punishing a person who is already suffering endlessly by not only sending him/her to prison for one year but also imposing fine which only serves to make their life more miserable by further compounding their endless problems. How can this grave injustice be ever justified? Can an ordinary person even dream to commit suicide? No. It is only under very compelling adverse circumstances that a person resorts to taking the extreme step of attempting to commit suicide. Such people suffering from severe depression need the company of good doctors and not jailors.

In my opinion, a person who is willing to take his own life has to be mentally, emotionally or financially instable. Sending him to a prison would mean that he would interact with criminals, most of whom would have committed crimes due to similar reasons. This in fact, would act as fuel to fire and the individual might commit an even more serious crime after being released from jail. Therefore, instead of jail time, such a person should be provided with psychiatric care and a calm environment instead of a jail full of criminals. Punishing attempted suicide is illogical because it becomes a crime for which the law can't punish you if you are successful, but can, if you are not. Therefore, the law should be amended to decriminalize attempted suicide. From a societal perspective, decriminalization is a more sensitive and humane way of dealing with the problem compared to prosecution.

NAME- ANIRUDH PRATAP SINGH

UNIVERSITY- RAM MANOHAR LOHIA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

SEMESTER- II