Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) punishes the abetment of suicide. It is the direct successor of the widely cited Section 306 IPC, carried into the new code on 1 July 2024 without any change in substance. If any person commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of that suicide is punished under this section.
What Section 108 BNS provides
Whoever abets the commission of suicide by any person shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine. The section applies only where a suicide has in fact been committed; what it punishes is the abetment of that act.
What "abetment" means here
Abetment is defined generally in Section 45 BNS and takes three forms: instigating a person to do a thing, engaging in a conspiracy for its doing, or intentionally aiding it. In suicide cases the courts insist on a strict reading:
- There must be a clear mens rea — an intention that the deceased take their own life — and a direct or active act by the accused that left the deceased with little choice;
- mere harassment, a quarrel, or words uttered in a fit of anger, without more, do not by themselves amount to instigation;
- a suicide note naming a person is a piece of evidence to be weighed, not an automatic basis for conviction - the note and the surrounding circumstances must still establish instigation or intentional aid.
Procedure and bail
Abetment of suicide is a cognizable and non-bailable offence, triable by the Court of Session. The police can register an FIR and investigate without the Magistrate's order, and bail is a matter for the court's discretion rather than of right. Because the deceased cannot testify, these cases turn heavily on documents, the suicide note if any, call records and the testimony of those who knew the circumstances.
What changed from Section 306 IPC
Nothing of substance - the provision was renumbered from Section 306 IPC to Section 108 BNS with the same ingredients, the same punishment and the same classification. The considerable body of Supreme Court case law on what does and does not amount to abetment of suicide continues to apply to the new section.
Leading Supreme Court judgments
- Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh (2001): "Instigation" means to goad, urge forward, provoke or incite; words spoken in anger or emotion, without the intention that they be acted upon, may not amount to instigation.
- S.S. Chheena v. Vijay Kumar Mahajan (2010) - abetment involves a mental process of instigating or intentionally aiding; without a positive act proximate to the suicide and clear mens rea, a conviction cannot stand.
Dealing with a case under this section - as a bereaved family or as an accused? These are Sessions trials where the framing of the evidence at the earliest stage matters enormously. Talk to a criminal lawyer in your city or browse advocates in the Free Law directory.