Is It Fair To Call A Suicidal Person As Someone With 'Weak & Frail Mentality'?

In a recent ruling, the Delhi High Court gave pre-arrest bail to a woman and her male friend who were accused of abetting the suicide of a man. The court said that a woman can't be held liable for the suicide of a man because of "love failure". The court further added that another person cannot be blamed for the "weak and frail mentality" of a person who ends their life. The court has provided protection to the two people from the arrest. 

A bench headed by Justice Amit Mahajan said, "If a lover commits suicide due to love failure, if a student commits suicide because of his poor performance in the examination, a client commits suicide because his case is dismissed, the lady, examiner, lawyer respectively cannot be held to have abetted the commission of suicide." 

The deceased's father filed a complaint against the two applicants

The case began when the deceased father filed a complaint against the woman and her friend. In the complaint, he stated that the woman was earlier in a romantic relationship with his son. The other accused was their common friend. However, the two accused instigated his son by saying that they were in a physical relationship and were going to marry soon. The deceased's body was found by his mother in his room. According to a suicide note, the deceased died by suicide because of the two accused. 

However, the court said that even though the names of the accused were mentioned in the note, there is no evidence that the threat was of such an alarming nature that could lead a "normal person" to die by suicide. 

"Prima facie, the alleged suicide note only expressed a state of anguish of the deceased towards the applicants, but it cannot be inferred that the applicants had any intention that led the deceased to commit suicide," the court noted. 

The court referred to the WhatsApp chats placed on record and said that the deceased was sensitive and constantly threatened the woman that he would die by suicide each time she refused to talk to him. 

Court grants anticipatory bail

Granting the anticipatory bail, the court said that the custodial interrogation of the two accused/applicants is only to help the investigation and is not punitive in nature. Although the court said that the custodial interrogation was not required, it directed the two accused to cooperate with the investigation. 

The case is too complicated to make any comment on it. However, the first thing that attracted my attention was the court's statement that a person who dies by suicide is of "weak and frail mentality". Even though, the court might be right about not considering others responsible for a person's suicide, calling a suicidal person weak or frail doesn't seem right. The court even said that the deceased was a "normal person".

Suicide is death caused by mental health illness

Suicidal thoughts do not come out of nowhere. It grinds in the mind, affects your body and ultimately makes you blind to the purpose of life. The idea of considering people who died by suicide as weak or selfish comes from the stigma around mental health issues. People who die by suicide are so numbed by their emotions that they consider death better than life. There might or might not be people or reasons behind suicide, but we need to accept that suicide is death caused by mental health illness. I am not a mental health expert but I am a survivor who fights suicidal thoughts and anxieties around them on a regular basis. 

However, if we look at the other side of the case, the deceased used suicide casually as a weapon to threaten or control the woman. The deceased not only undermined the seriousness but also blackmailed the woman who had the right to make her choices. 

So, the point is that our society is still not sensitised towards mental health issues or suicide. The rates of suicide, especially among teens, are growing every day. It is high time we take the issue seriously and provide the required help. 

Views expressed are the author's own.