The document discusses India's recent decision to decriminalize attempted suicide by repealing Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code. It provides background on the classification of suicide and attempted suicide. It notes that 18 states and 4 union territories supported the Law Commission's recommendation to remove the section. Some states expressed reservations about the move. The document discusses arguments for and against decriminalization, including that punishing attempts is inhumane and survivors need medical help rather than prosecution. It also discusses suicide rates in India and worldwide. Overall, the document examines perspectives on both sides of the debate around decriminalizing attempted suicide in India.

1. WILL IT LOWER NUMBER
OF SUICIDES?

2.  Life is a stage with one entrance but many exits. Among
those, suicide is one exit having a long ancestry. In 1968,
the World Health Organisation defined suicidal act as “the
injury with varying degree of lethal intent” and that suicide
may be defined as “a suicidal act with fatal outcome”.
Suicidal acts with non fatal outcome are labelled by World
Health Organisation as “attempted suicide.” In recent
times, attempted suicide, though a failed act, has gained
more importance than the suicide which is the successful
act because for this there is no offender who can be
brought within the purview of law. In India, attempt to
suicide is made punishable under section 309 of Indian
Penal Code, 1860.

3.  Recently, the Indian Government has decided to repeal Section
309 of the IPC, thereby decriminalising the attempt to commit
suicide. This decision of the government has rekindled the
debate of using penal measures to veer people from their path
who attempt suicide. The government had decided to drop
Section 309 from the IPC after 18 states and 4 Union territories
backed the recommendation of the Law Commission of India in
this regard. Law Commission of India, in its 210th Report, had
recommended that Section 309 (attempt to commit suicide) of
IPC needs to be effaced from the statute book. As law and order
is a state subject, views of States/UTs were requested on the
recommendations of the Law Commission. 18 states and 4 Union
territory administrations supported that Section 309 of the IPC
may be deleted. Keeping in view the responses from the
states/UTs, it was decided to delete Section 309 of IPC from the
statute book. The law panel, in its 210th report submitted in
2008, had noted that attempt to suicide may be regarded more
as a manifestation of a diseased condition of mind, deserving
treatment and care rather than punishment, and accordingly
recommended to the government to initiate the process for
repeal of the "anachronistic" Section 309.

4.  Incidentally, at least five states — Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi,
Punjab and Sikkim — expressed reservations against the move to
de-criminalise suicide bids. Bihar wanted a distinction drawn
between persons driven to suicide due to medical illnesses and
suicide bombers who fail to blow themselves up or terrorists who
consume cyanide pills to wipe out evidence, and wanted the
former to be covered by a separate legislation. However, the
home ministry officials clarified that such a person would still
face charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention
Act, whether or not he succeeds in his mission.
 Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Sikkim argued that decriminalising
attempt to suicide would handicap law enforcement agencies in
dealing with persons who resort to fast unto death or self-
immolation to press the government/ authorities to accept their
unreasonable or illegitimate demands. Such people, they argued,
can no longer be booked for attempt to suicide or be force-fed.
A home ministry official pointed out the case of Manipuri anti-
AFSPA activist Irom Sharmila, who has been on indefinite fast for
the last 14 years but was kept alive by being charged with
attempt to suicide and forcibly administered intravenous fluids.

5.  Section 309 of the IPC is a highly insensitive provision that
requires a person to die successfully, or be prosecuted. Besides
being an absolute abuse of human autonomy, punishing survivors
of suicide attempts is not the hallmark of a civilized society. As
the largest democracy in the world, and as one of the most stable
regimes in South Asia, India has the moral responsibility to pave
the way for legal reforms. So far the new Indian government has
made all the right choices, but will they begin to act in the full
spirit of what they say?
 Over the last decade, the suicide rate has gone up by a good 25%.
India’s courts have however over the last 2 decades, slowly woken
up to the reality that in a misguided effort at preserving life, they
have been doing everything to facilitate just the opposite. In the
case of P. Rathinam v. Union of India the Supreme Court,
speaking with respect to articles 21 and 14 of the Indian
constitution said: “… we state that section 309 needs to be
effaced from our statute books to humanize our penal laws. It is a
cruel and inhuman provision, and it may result in punishing a
person again who has already suffered agony and would be
undergoing ignominy because of his failure to commit suicide.”

6.  Again, in a path–breaking decision in Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug
v. Union of India & Ors., given on March 7, 2011, a bench consisting
of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra, said: "We
are of the opinion that although section 309 Indian Penal Code has
been held to be constitutionally valid in Gian Kaur's case, the time
has come when it should be deleted by Parliament as it has become
anachronistic… We therefore recommend to Parliament to consider
the feasibility of deleting section 309 from the Indian Penal Code.”
 The year 2014 ended on a good note for many legal activists, health
and social workers when, during the first week of December, the
Indian government finally acceded to their long-standing request of
decriminalising attempted suicides in India.
 Any benefit we could accrue from retaining a regressive provision
like section 309 disappears in the face of the sheer cruelty and
harassment it forces upon the general population. A common image
the decriminalisation debate regularly brings to mind is that of the
Manipuri peace activist Ms. Irom Sharmila, who is seeking revocation
of India’s draconian armed forces (special powers) act by means of
indefinite fasting. Section 309 has consistently been used to
suppress peaceful voices of dissent such as hers.

7.  According to numbers provided by the World Health Organization (WHO),
suicide is one of the three leading causes of death worldwide among those
in the most economically productive bracket of 15–44 years, and the second
leading cause of death in the 15–19 years age group. The majority of such
deaths occur in low and middle income countries. Back in 1999, the WHO
estimated that by 2020, people who attempt suicide world-wide would be
10 to 20 times more than those who succeed in committing it. In such a
scenario, the ensuing statistics can be an extremely disturbing number for a
country with a population as large as India’s.
 India’s National Crime Records Bureau estimated in its Accidental Deaths &
Suicides Report of 2013 that more than 1 lakh (1,34,799) people committed
suicide due to a variety of factors in 2012. It was further recorded that
‘family problems’ (24%) and ’illness’ (19.6%) together accounted for 43.6% of
total suicides. But that in itself is a conservative statistic. There are strong
reasons to believe that in many instances, death by suicide goes unreported.
In many rural areas of India, death by suicide is frequently reported as due
to illness or accident. This is done to avoid police investigations, the
possibility of the body being mutilated during post – mortem examinations
and due to the social stigma involved. Thus, suicide statistics derived from
police records are often severely under–reported in India.

8.  It is most intriguing and frustrating to observe
that our penal laws which are nothing but the
handiwork of Britishers have by and large
remained untouched even after more than 60
years of independence. What a pity that
Britishers have themselves amended their penal
laws and decriminalised attempt to suicide way
back in 1961 but we are yet to even deliberate
on taking any action on this decisive issue
which subjects an already tormented person to
further punishment and ignominy!

9.  Certainly, we should not be the copycat of Britishers but can we
deny that increasingly more and more countries like Netherlands,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Oregon and Washington in
USA and Thailand are even legalising euthanasia or mercy killing
for terminally ill persons? Can we deny the decriminalization of
attempted suicide by all countries in Europe, North America and
Canada? Can we deny that it is only a handful of countries in the
world like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and India
who still punish attempt to suicide under their penal laws? Are
we still waiting only to be the last country in the world to
decriminalise attempt to suicide? Let us not forget that Section
309 tantamount to brazenly punishing a person who is already
suffering endlessly by not only sending him/her to prison for
one year but also imposing fine which only serves to make their
life more miserable by further compounding their endless
problems. How can this grave injustice be ever justified? Can an
ordinary person even dream to commit suicide? No. It is only
under very compelling adverse circumstances that a person
resorts to taking the extreme step of attempting to commit
suicide. Such people suffering from severe depression need the
company of good doctors and not jailors.

10.  In my opinion, a person who is willing to take his own
life has to be mentally, emotionally or financially
instable. Sending him to a prison would mean that he
would interact with criminals, most of whom would have
committed crimes due to similar reasons. This in fact,
would act as fuel to fire and the individual might
commit an even more serious crime after being released
from jail. Therefore, instead of jail time, such a person
should be provided with psychiatric care and a calm
environment instead of a jail full of criminals. Punishing
attempted suicide is illogical because it becomes a
crime for which the law can't punish you if you are
successful, but can, if you are not. Therefore, the law
should be amended to decriminalize attempted suicide.
From a societal perspective, decriminalization is a more
sensitive and humane way of dealing with the problem
compared to prosecution.

11.  NAME- ANIRUDH PRATAP
SINGH
 UNIVERSITY- RAM MANOHAR
LOHIA NATIONAL LAW
UNIVERSITY
 SEMESTER- II