“Grave suspicion”, not mere suspicion, was how the Madhya Pradesh High Court read the material against a doctor, and the MP High Court refuses discharge to him in a woman’s suicide case, leaving consent and instigation for trial.
Gwalior: A doctor who wanted to be discharged from charges of abetment of suicide, rape, stalking and sexual harassment, framed after a woman’s death in 2023, has lost his revision: the MP High Court refuses discharge to the accused, holding that the allegations must be tested at trial [Surendra Kirar v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others]. The charges are allegations only, nothing has been proved, the Court has expressed no view on guilt, and the presumption of innocence applies to the accused.
The order was delivered by Justice Pushpendra Yadav on October 13, 2026 in Criminal Revision No. 1097 of 2025, having been reserved on September 30, 2026. It was passed on a challenge to the February 24, 2025 order of the III Additional Sessions Judge, Vidisha, in S.T. No. 77/2024, which had refused the petitioner’s discharge application and framed charges under Sections 306, 376, 354-D and 354-A of the IPC.
What tipped the Court
Reading the material at face value, the Court noted that witnesses spoke of continued irritation, stalking, threats and harassment over a period of time, including after the earlier case ended in a compromise, of threats to the woman’s parents and children, and of interference with her treatment after she had consumed sleeping pills. It also noted that she had applied for a transfer alleging mental torture. Its conclusion was this:
“The cumulative effect of the material on record, therefore, cannot be said to give rise to a mere suspicion only; rather, it raises a grave suspicion regarding the petitioner’s involvement and constitutes sufficient ground to proceed against him for the alleged offences.”
The prosecution’s account and the doctor’s answer
As the prosecution tells it, the woman died by suicide on January 28, 2023 at her father’s house. A Marg intimation was registered first. During the inquiry, her family alleged that the petitioner, a BAMS doctor working as a Community Health Officer, had continuously harassed and stalked her and sent her obscene messages, and an FIR under Section 306 IPC followed. Further investigation turned up a vaginal slide report showing human sperm, and Sections 376 and 354-D, and later Section 354-A, were added on the strength of that report, family statements and the alleged messages and demands for sexual favours. The trial court rejected the discharge plea after the charge-sheet.
The petitioner’s case is that old animosity lies behind a false implication, that the two knew each other and used to travel together, and that the relationship was consensual. He pointed to Crime No. 325/2022, filed earlier by the woman, in which the JMFC, Vidisha acquitted him on November 4, 2022 because she did not support the case. There was no suicide note, he said, no act of instigation with a proximate link to the death, and no cyber cell report on the seized phone on file. The State and the complainant countered that the harassment went on even after a compromise in the earlier case.
Instigation, and how far a court looks at the framing stage
The Court went through Sections 306 and 107 of the IPC and the Supreme Court’s reading of instigation in Ramesh Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh and Chitresh Kumar Chopra v. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi): to instigate is to goad, urge, provoke, incite or encourage, and it may be inferred where a continued course of conduct leaves the deceased with no option but to end her life. At the stage of framing charges, it recalled, a court need only ask whether there is ground for presuming that the accused committed an offence, citing State of Maharashtra v. Som Nath Thapa and Amit Kapoor v. Ramesh Chander.
The missing suicide note
To the argument that there was neither a note nor a specific act of instigation, the Court answered:
“Mere absence of a suicide note, by itself, cannot justify discharge where the material on record otherwise raises a grave suspicion that the deceased committed suicide, prima facie, due to the aforesaid conduct of the petitioner, which was capable of provoking, urging or encouraging the deceased to do so.”
Whether the conduct amounts to instigation or intentional aid, whether the necessary intention existed, and whether there was a proximate link to the suicide are, it held, matters of appreciating evidence at trial.
Consent, the earlier acquittal and the cyber report
For the rape charge the Court leaned on the vaginal slide report and a DNA profile which, according to the prosecution, matched the petitioner. Whether the relationship was consensual or against her will was a disputed question that could not be settled now; doing so would amount to a premature mini-trial. The earlier acquittal in Crime No. 325/2022 arose from distinct allegations and did not stand in the way of looking at the present material on stalking and sexual harassment. As for the absent cyber cell report, the Court said it was no ground for discharge when witness statements, medical and forensic material and call detail records were available.
Seeing no illegality in the framing of charges, it dismissed the revision, upheld the trial court’s order and distinguished the precedents the petitioner had cited. It closed with a caution:
“The observations made herein are confined to the present revision only and shall not be construed as any final opinion on the guilt or innocence of the accused”
What the order shows
At the charge-framing stage a court weighs very little. Where witness accounts of sustained stalking and threats are backed by forensic material, it will not compare the evidence on each side, and an absent suicide note, an earlier acquittal or a pending forensic report will not by themselves secure discharge.
The order also applies the Supreme Court’s view that abetment of suicide can be inferred from a continued course of conduct, while the actual findings on instigation, consent and guilt are left wholly to the trial court, which has been told to proceed uninfluenced by these observations.
Case Title: Surendra Kirar v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others [Criminal Revision No. 1097 of 2025]
Bench: Justice Pushpendra Yadav, Madhya Pradesh High Court (Gwalior)
Date of Order: October 13, 2026
Appearances: Advocate Sanjay Gupta for the petitioner; Public Prosecutor Vikram Pippal for the State; Advocate Mahendra Singh Yadav for the complainant
FOLLOW US FOR MORE LEGAL UPDATES ON YOUTUBE
If you or someone you know is struggling with distress or thoughts of self-harm, you can reach Tele-MANAS, the national mental health helpline, at 14416.