Kochi | The Mental Healthcare Act, which protects a person from punishment under the IPC if they attempt suicide, has come to the aid of a woman convicted and sentenced to life for smothering her 15-month-old infant in 2016, as she had also tried to take her own life at that time.

Referring to the provisions of the Act, the Kerala High Court acquitted the woman convicted by a Sessions Court in 2023, saying that she was under severe mental stress and had attempted suicide when the incident had occurred.

The Act, which came into effect in 2018, was earlier held by the Kerala High Court to have retrospective effect.

In the present case, the High Court said that the Act was in force when the trial began in 2021 and therefore, the Sessions Court ought to have taken it into account.

A bench of justices Raja Vijayaraghavan V and K V Jayakumar said that the woman had attempted to commit suicide by consuming a substantial quantity of paracetamol tablets, inflicted injuries on her wrists with a sharp object and also wrote a suicide note before committing these acts, indicating that she was under severe mental stress.

"These circumstances, prima facie, constituted material evidence relevant to the allegation of an attempt to commit suicide. However, for reasons best known to the prosecution, no earnest effort was made to substantiate the charge under section 309 (attempt to commit suicide) IPC," the court said.

"In the above circumstances, we are of the considered view that the provisions of section 115 (presumption of severe stress in case of attempt to commit suicide) of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 would squarely apply to the facts of the instant case and the appellant (accused) would be deemed to have been under mental stress and she could not have been punished for any of the offences under the IPC," the bench said in its June 8 judgement.

The prosecution had contended that since the accused stood acquitted of the offence under section 309 of the IPC, the statutory presumption contemplated under Section 115 of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 would have no application to the facts of the present case.

The High Court rejected the contention, saying that during the course of arguments before the trial court, the prosecution itself had not seriously pursued the charge under section 309 of the IPC.

"We further find that the acquittal of the appellant under section 309 of the IPC was not founded on a positive finding that there was no attempt to commit suicide. On the contrary, the Sessions Judge appears to have proceeded on the concession extended by the public prosecutor and on the premise that the prosecution had failed to establish that the injuries sustained by the accused were sufficient in the ordinary course to cause death.

"Such an approach, in our view, is legally unsustainable," it said.

The bench said that the reasoning adopted by the Sessions Judge that the offence under section 309 of the IPC was not attracted merely because the injuries sustained on the wrists and elbows were not sufficient to cause death, "cannot be sustained".

"Such an interpretation travels beyond the plain language of the provision and overlooks the distinction between an attempt to commit suicide and the actual likelihood of death resulting from the acts committed".

"The focus of section 309 of the IPC is the attempt and the acts done towards its commission, and not the ultimate gravity or fatal potential of the injuries inflicted," it said.

The High Court allowed the woman's appeal and set aside her conviction and life sentence.

".. the appellant/accused is set at liberty," it said.

The woman had challenged the Session Court's November 2023 decision convicting and sentencing her to life for the murder of her child in February 2016.

According to her, she had been subjected to sustained cruelty and harassment by her husband and in-laws ever since her marriage by accusing her of maintaining an illicit relationship with another person, and questioning the paternity of the child.

She has also claimed that she was subjected to persistent demands for additional dowry and was made to suffer both mental and physical cruelty.

It was her case that the cumulative effect of these events caused her severe mental trauma, which ultimately drove her to attempt suicide on February 16, 2016 by consuming 14 paracetamol tablets.

She stated that after consuming the tablets, she lost consciousness and, therefore, had no knowledge of how her wrists came to be cut or what had happened to the minor child thereafter.