The law regarding suicide is very clear–
Suppose you complete the act of suicide, no liability against you. But if you are alive after attempting suicide, you are liable for serving a sentence.
Section 309 under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 makes provision for punishment for attempting suicide. Whatever the reason for attempting suicide, one would be held liable for such an act.
The reason is life cannot be met to an end arbitrarily except in accordance with the law. This is the essence of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950. There is no law through which suicide is made legal.
Article 21 is reproduced here as–
“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”
The question is whether this Article applies to the person himself. Whether he has any right to die in accordance with his will without any law being enacted in this regard?
The language of the Article is clear that a person can be deprived of his life only in accordance with the law. If there is no law, to legalize suicide, any act in furtherance of suicide will be ultra-vires to the constitution. Moreover, section 309 IPC making suicide attempt an offence attracts punishment of the law of the land.
The only aspect which shall be understood is the concept of “living will” which means that an individual has a right to make a will regarding euthanasia in the future if he acquires a stage of permanent or temporary vegetative state. The first case that came before the Supreme court of India is Aruna Ramchandra Shambaugh’s case where the permission to end a person’s life in a permanent vegetative state was held to be legal but only by thorough scrutiny of the circumstances present before the court as parens patriae where the advanced medical directive is not present. Hence, this case permits passive vegetation.
In Gian Kaur v. the State of Punjab, the Apex court opined that section 309 I.P.C 1860 is constitutionally valid. In a case the question of looking at the mental health of the accused at the time of the attempt became essential. Under the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 such a person is not to be treated as an accused but as a victim whose mental illness is required to be treated.
The relevant section 115 of this Act which is reproduced here–
“Notwithstanding anything contained in section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, any person who attempts to commit suicide shall be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have severe stress and shall not be tried and punished under the said Code.”
This is a true concept, as nobody loves to end his life. What prompts the person to attempt suicide is needed to be investigated. One answer to this question would be the harassment whether physical or mental of such a person by any other person/s. The eminently important point is that section 309 IPC is not deleted by the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. It just makes a rebuttable presumption in favor of the accused.
The recent past shows the urge to decriminalize section 309 IPC and determine the mental health of the person attempting suicide. The legislators enacted the law for making presumptions about the mental health of the person accused under 309 IPC but rejected decriminalizing the section. This is a positive parliamentary decision maintaining the balance between mental health and offence. Gian Kaur’s case did not make the “right to die” a fundamental right but only the “right to die with dignity” as included in the “right to life”. It elaborately speaks that “right to die” is opposed to “right to life” as “death” is opposed to
“life”.
Therefore, an attempt to suicide is an offence if the presumption under the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 is rebutted by the prosecution.