Boss not guilty if employee kills self due to excess workload, rules Supreme Court
Thursday, June 28, 2018 IST
The issue came to fore when a Maharashtra government employee named Kishor Parashar killed himself in August 2017. Parashar was also allegedly forced to work at odd hours and even on holidays.
In a major ruling, the Supreme Court has said that if an employee takes the extreme step of ending his/her life due to heavy workload at the office, his superior cannot be held accused of abetting the suicide. Rejecting an argument put forth by Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench that the accused boss or senior officer should be held accused as the situation that he creates for his junior, even if not deliberate, could lead to a situation in which that person takes that extreme step, the apex court said that the superior can not be adjudged a criminal if he assigns a load of work to an employee.
The issue came to fore when a Maharashtra government employee named Kishor Parashar killed himself in August 2017. His wife lodged a police complaint alleging that her husband’s superior officer at the office of the deputy director of education in Aurangabad used to put lot of pressure for which he had to stay in office beyond his duty hours. Apart from this, Parashar was also allegedly forced to work at odd hours and even on holidays. She also alleged that his salary was stopped and the senior officer warned that he would stop his increment.
Aurangabad police had registered the FIR based on Parashar’s wife complaints. Subsequently, the senior officer had filed place at the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay HC for seeking quashing of the FIR.
However, the High Court had on January 23 rejected the plea to quash the FIR. The HC had then observed that there was no direct abetment and the applicants cannot have any intention that the deceased should commit suicide. It had stressed on the fact that even when the accused persons have no such intention, if they create a situation causing mental tension so as to drive the person to commit suicide, they can be said to be instigating the accused to commit suicide.
Unperturbed by the HC ruling, the senior officer approached the top court. Maharashtra government’s standing counsel Nishant Katneswarkar had appealed against the plea in front of a bench comprising Arun Mishra and U U Lalit. The Supreme Court bench had termed the HC’s rationale behind the verdict as untenable and quashed the FIR.
Justice Lalit while pronouncing the judgment said, “It is true that if a situation is created deliberately so as to drive a person to commit suicide, there would be room for attracting Section 306 of the IPC (abetment to suicide). However, the facts on record in the present case are inadequate and insufficient (to reach that conclusion).” The bench quashed the FIR against the superior officer.
Related Topics
Related News & Articles
Soon after taking over in September last year, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal had instructed officials to not use their juniors for menial jobs.
Recently posted . 558 views . 1 min read
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation employs around 12,000 people, with non-executive staffers accounting for about 9,000.
Recently posted . 541 views . 1 min read
The move will benefit more than one crore central government employees and pensioners.
Recently posted . 465 views . 0 min read
NEW DELHI: Dearness allowance for lakhs of central government employees and pensioners has been hiked by 2 per cent. The increase was appro...
Recently posted . 518 views . 2 min read
The railways had launched a drive to improve performance of the organisation and boost the morale of sincere and diligent employees.
Recently posted . 546 views . 1 min read
Trending News & Articles
While the Uttarakhand High Court has asked to block 857 websites, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) found 30 portals without any pornographic content.
...
Recently posted . 61K views . 1 min read
The four boys as well as five school officials, including the director and principal, were arrested after the incident. The minors were presented before the Juvenil...
Recently posted . 8K views . 1 min read
Rahul was having an Italian passport and was carrying suitcase full of dollars. Some say it was about was it $2 million.
Rahul and his girl friend was th...
Recently posted . 7K views . 7 min read
True – Tr...
Recently posted . 6K views . 83 min read
More in
Indian Oil Corporation, the Indian state-owned oil and gas company had earlier announced a unique service for its consumers, wherein the agency had promised a home ...
Recently posted. 590 views . 2 min read
RANCHI: RJD chief Lalu Prasad was today admitted to the cardiac ward of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, hours after ...
Recently posted. 623 views . 1 min read
The station is fully operated by 28 women employees, including ticket checkers, RPF, operations staff and reservation and booking supervisors, North Western Railw...
Recently posted. 531 views . 1 min read
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 739 views
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 1K views . 87 min read
Recently posted . 1K views . 19 min read
Jammu: Two dreaded terrorists belonging to the Pakistan-backed militant outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) were killed by the security forces in a...
Recently posted. 747 views . 9 min read
The Stanford University study says that Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and J&K account for nearly 75% of all recorded shutdowns in India, while J&K alone com...
Recently posted. 601 views . 1 min read