Criminal Procedure Code, 1973
Section 438—Anticipatory bail—Abetment of suicide—FIR registered under Section 306/34 of the Indian Penal Code—Allegation that the applicant not acted on e-mails sent by deceased and created hostile environment in office, which led to deceased tendering her resignation and thereafter taking extreme step of committing suicide—E-mail which is the resignation of deceased does not cast any aspersions of creating a hostile environment by applicant—Suicide note also does not seem to be indicative of applicant abetting suicide by the deceased—Suicide note indicates behaviour of two other persons as haunting to deceased—Bail and anticipatory bail granted to these two persons by the competent courts of jurisdiction—Even assuming that the applicant has not acted on the e-mail, the same does not come within the purview of “llegal omission”—Nothing on record to shows that applicant was mandated in law to be legally bound to act on the e-mails—At best not acting on the emails sent by deceased may be a dereliction of duty or a casual approach by applicant but cannot by any stretch mean to be an illegal omission under Section 107 of the IPC—Death caused due to overwork and toxic work environment is a social problems which requires the government, the labour unions, the health officials and corporates to formulate appropriate policies—What is needed is an examination of the issues of overwork and occupational stress focusing on mental health at workplace—Unfortunate incident of death of deceased can be attributable to mental stress but cannot be brought within the parameters of Section 107 IPC— Anticipatory bail granted.
[Paras 21 to 30 & 34]