New Delhi, Apr 30 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has held mere quarrels in a marriage or family do not amount to abetment of a crime and granted protection from arrest to a woman and her son in such a case.

Justice Ravinder Dudeja said factors such as an emotionally or mentally vulnerable person or someone suffering from psychiatric issues had to be considered in abetment of suicide cases, which required a higher proof of instigation.

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"Abetment is constituted by instigating a person to commit an offence or engaging in a conspiracy to commit it or intentionally aiding a person to commit it. Mere harassment may not be enough for abetment. There must be active instigation. Mere quarrels or fights in a marriage or family, do not amount to abetment."

The judge said every case of suicide does not amount to abetment and the court has to see whether the conduct of the accused was such that a normal person, not merely a hyper sensitive one, would have been driven to suicide.

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"The standard is what a reasonable person would do and not someone who is unusually sensitive and unstable," the court said.

The court's observations came while granting anticipatory bail to a woman and her son, facing prosecution for allegedly being involved in abetting the suicide of her husband who died on April 30 last year.

The counsel for the two accused claimed the deceased had suicidal tendencies and was undergoing psychiatric treatment in various hospitals.

He alleged the deceased used to force his wife to have unnatural sex with him and even her sons had witnessed her being repeatedly sexually abused.

The counsel said the wife lodged an FIR against the husband but upon learning about it her threatened to die by suicide and implicate them by writing a suicide note.

The bail pleas were opposed by the prosecution on the ground that before his death, the man circulated a WhatsApp message in which he clearly claimed of being tortured and harassed by the petitioners and being administered poison.

The petitioners placed the man's medical records to show he was suffering from depression, had a clinical history of abnormal behaviour, suicidal tendency and bipolar disorder.

While granting the relief, the court made note of transcripts of the recorded conversations to hold prima facie the man expletives against the petitioners.

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