The Hindu : National : Don’t treat suicide bid as offence: law panel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 28, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Don’t treat suicide bid as offence: law panel

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi: An attempt to commit suicide must not be treated as an offence under the Indian Penal Code, and a person suffering to live must have a “right to die,” the Law Commission has suggested. It favours deletion of Section 309, under which an attempt to commit suicide is a punishable offence, from the Indian Penal Code.

In its draft report, the Commission has said: “If a person has the right to enjoy his life, he cannot be forced to live that life to his detriment, disadvantage or disliking. If a person is leading a miserable life or is seriously sick or having an incurable disease, it is improper as well as immoral to ask him to live a painful life and to suffer agony. It is an insult to humanity.”

Commission Chairman A.R. Lakshmanan told The Hindu on Friday that the report would be finalised and submitted to the government shortly. Though the Supreme Court upheld Section 309 in 1996, things had changed since then and a more liberal outlook was required to be taken now, he said.

Fear belied

“The apprehension that repeal of the law would cause an increase in suicides is belied by the fact that Sri Lanka repealed the law four years ago and the suicide rate [there] is showing a trend in reduction.”

According to the Commission report, if a person is suffering from unbearable ailments or mental imbalance or is unable to take normal care of his/her body, or if he/she has lost all the senses and if his/her real desire is to quit the world, he/she cannot be compelled to continue with torture and painful life. It will indeed be cruel not to permit such a person to die.

“In many countries, attempt to commit suicide is regarded more as a manifestation of a diseased condition of mind deserving treatment and care than as an offence to be visited with punishment. The continuance of Section 309 in the IPC is an anachronism unworthy of a human society like ours.”

Quoting an English writer, the report says: “It seems a monstrous procedure to inflict further suffering on even a single individual who has already found life so unbearable, his chances of happiness so slender, that he has been willing to face pain and death in order to cease living. That those for whom life is altogether bitter should be subjected to further bitterness and degradation seems perverse legislation.”

The report says it should be the endeavour of all to initiate steps to repeal Section 309. However, it is for Parliament to decide whether the provision should continue in the statute or to have it deleted with necessary amendments to the IPC.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National