Attempted Suicide

In one line

Attempting suicide was an offence, was held unconstitutional in 1994, was restored by a Constitution Bench in 1996, was displaced in 2017 by a statute that presumes severe stress and bars trial, and has no general successor in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The provision

Section 309 of the Penal Code, attempt to commit suicide. Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.

Three features made it the natural target of this topic.

The only person harmed is the actor, which is the harm principle's paradigm case.

The offender is by definition in distress, so the deterrent theory has little purchase and the reformative theory points the other way.

And the penalty is small, which is Packer's fifth condition asking whether the criminal sanction was needed at all.

1994: struck down

P. Rathinam v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 394. Writ petitions challenged the section, and among the questions framed was whether a person residing in India has a right to die, that is, whether the right to life in article 21 includes a right not to live.

The Court held that section 309 violates article 21 and is therefore void, and allowed the petitions by declaring section 309 unconstitutional and hence void, quashing a pending prosecution. It said the view would advance the cause of humanisation, which it called a need of the day, and of globalisation, since by effacing the section this part of the criminal law would be attuned to the global wavelength.

1996: restored

Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, AIR 1996 SC 946, a Constitution Bench, arose in appeals against convictions for abetting a suicide, in which the validity of both the abetment provision and the attempt provision was raised.

The arguments recorded in the judgment are worth setting out, because they show the range.

For the State. Article 21 guarantees protection of life and liberty and not its extinction; the section does not violate article 14 because the sentencing discretion gives ample discretion to apply that provision with compassion to an unfortunate victim of circumstances; and the earlier decision required reconsideration.

And an argument that would have reached the same result by a different route. One counsel did not support the construction of article 21 as including a right to die, but argued that the section was invalid under article 14, on the ground that a provision to punish attempted suicide is monstrous and barbaric.

The Constitution Bench held that neither provision is constitutionally invalid; that the decisions holding the attempt provision unconstitutional, including P. Rathinam, are not correct; and it approved the contrary view that the section violates neither article 14 nor article 21. The appeals were directed to be heard on merits treating both sections as constitutionally valid.