Bombay High Court quashes FIR against forest officer in suicide abetment case

Bombay High Court. File Pic

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has quashed an FIR registered against suspended senior forest officer MS Reddy in abetment of suicide case.

Reddy, who had been made a co-accused in the suicide of a woman colleague, range forest officer (RFO) Deepali Chavan early this year, had filed a petition in the HC's Nagpur bench for quashing of the FIR registered against him by the police in Maharashtra's Amravati district.

In its order, a division bench of Justices GA Sanap and AS Chandurkar said there was no material whatsoever to attract the provisions of section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code against Reddy in the case. "In the light of the principles laid down in State of Haryana Versus Bhajanlal (1992) and especially illustration nos.1 and 3 thereof, continuation of the present proceedings against the petitioner would thus amount to an exercise in futility thus resulting in abuse of the process of law," the court observed and quashed the FIR.

Reddy, earlier suspended in connection with the suicide of Chavan, who was RFO at the Melghat Tiger Reserve (MTR), was arrested on April 29 this year by the Amravati rural police. Chavan had committed suicide by shooting herself with a service weapon in March this year allegedly due to harassment by senior officials.
In a purported suicide note, she had levelled allegations against her senior officer, Deputy Conservator of Forest Vinod Shivkumar, who is the main accused in the case and had been arrested earlier.

In the note, Chavan had said that Reddy, then Field Director at the Melghat Tiger Reserve, had failed to take action against Shivkumar despite her complaint to him.

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