HC: Court martial fear, not sting, led to suicide

Mumbai, May 6

The apprehension of court martial and not a sting video might have led to an Army jawan’s suicide, the Bombay High Court said, quashing a criminal case lodged against a senior journalist and a retired soldier accused of abetting it.

On March 27, 2017, the Deolali Camp Police in Nashik had registered a case against journalist Poonam Agarwal and war veteran Deepchand Singh under various sections for abetment of suicide of one Roy Mathew and trespassing under IPC and sections of the Official Secrets Act.

The case was registered after Mathew, a sahayak with the Army, had committed suicide on February 7, 2017.

According to the police, Mathew had featured in a sting operation carried out by Agarwal and Singh on the sahayak or buddy system, and committed suicide due to fear and shame. Agarwal and Singh had later approached the High Court seeking quashing of the case against them. A Division Bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre on April 18 quashed the case.

In its detailed order made available on Monday, the court said the case set out in the complaint against Agarwal and Singh was completely inadequate and insufficient to invoke provisions of Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (abetment to suicide).

The order said Roy Mathew had made some comments about the buddy system in the video and he must have been interrogated by his superiors when the clip became viral.

“It is this apprehension of court martial which might have led to the suicide of the deceased, but by no stretch of imagination the video containing the information given by Roy Mathew amounted to any offence,” the court said, adding that Agarwal and Singh had not done anything that affected national interest. “We fail to understand how the video clippings which contain a conversation about the sahayak affects the national security.” — PTI