Sitting on hunger strike is not a suicide try, says HC

Will sitting on a hunger strike for days collectively to press sure calls for and refusing to cooperate with the authorities within the provision of medical therapy quantity to a legal offence below Section 309 (try and commit suicide) of the Indian Penal Code? The Madras High Court has answered this query of regulation with a categorical no.

Quashing one such case booked in opposition to a Sri Lankan refugee, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh stated: “The mere fact that the petitioner has protested by sitting on hunger strike will not attract the offence under Section 309 IPC. Even if the materials available on record are taken as it is, it does not constitute an offence under Section 309 IPC.”

Advocate P. Pugalenthi introduced it to the discover of the court docket that petitioner P. Chandrakumar was lodged in a particular refugee camp functioning on the Poonnamalee sub jail campus in 2013. Unlike these lodged in common refugee campus, the inmates of particular camps had been denied the liberty of motion and not allowed to step out. Therefore, the petitioner sat on a hunger strike for practically 10 days between August 15 and August 24, 2013.

He was additionally accused of not cooperating with the native Tahsildar when makes an attempt had been made to offer medical therapy to him when his well being situation worsened because of the protest having been continued for practically 10 days.

Acting on the idea of a grievance lodged by a native policeman in-charge of the safety within the particular camp, a First Information Report (FIR) was registered in opposition to the petitioner below Section 309 of the IPC and a chargesheet was additionally laid earlier than a judicial Justice of the Peace, who took cognisance in 2016, forcing the petitioner to maneuver the High Court.

The petitioner’s counsel primarily raised two grounds. One was that the act of going on a hunger strike or sitting on a quick would not quantity to an offence below Section 309 of IPC. The second floor was that the Justice of the Peace ought not to have taken cognisance after three years since such an act was barred by the interval of limitation.

It was dropped at the discover of the court docket that Section 468 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states that courts ought to take cognisance of offences inside six months in the event that they had been punishable with advantageous alone, inside a yr if the offence was punishable with jail time period not exceeding one yr and inside three years if the offence was punishable with jail time period exceeding one yr however not exceeding three years.

In the case of Section 309 of IPC, punishable with easy imprisonment which might lengthen as much as one yr or with advantageous or with each, the Magistrate must have taken cognisance inside one yr, the counsel argued and the decide concurred with him. “Taking cognizance of the final report by the court below is barred by law and stands vitiated,” the decide held.

(Assistance for overcoming suicidal ideas is out there on the State’s well being helpline 104 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.)