Uphaar fire tragedy case: HC dismisses Ansals’ pleas for suspension of sentence

A trial court sentenced the Ansals, former court staffer Dinesh Chand Sharma, P P Batra, and Karayat to a seven-year jail term in the case

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Wednesday dismissed real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal’s pleas for suspension of a seven-year sentence imposed on them for tampering with evidence related to the 1997 Uphaar Cinema fire tragedy, which left 59 people dead.

Relatives of victims outside Uphaar Cinema. (HT Photo/File)

“As far as the Ansal brothers are concerned, I am rejecting the applications and I am allowing the application for [Anoop Singh] Karayat,” said Justice Subramonium Prasad, who on January 27 reserved his order on the pleas.

A detailed judgment was yet to be uploaded on the high court’s website.

A trial court in November sentenced the Ansals, former court staffer Dinesh Chand Sharma, P P Batra, and Karayat to seven-year imprisonment in the tampering case. Karayat was an employee of the Ansals, who was convicted of conspiring with other accused to get the documents with the potential to establish their involvement in the main fire case tampered with.

The Supreme Court in August 2015 sentenced the Ansal brothers, who owned the cinema, to two years in prison in the main fire case. They avoided imprisonment after spending about five months in jail. The apex court ruled that a penalty of ₹30 crore each and time they served in prison was adequate punishment for their criminal negligence given their age.

The tampering case was separately detected in July 2002 and prompted a departmental inquiry against Sharma, who was first suspended and later terminated from service in June 2004.

A sessions court refused to suspend the sentence in the tampering case and release the convicts on bail, saying the case was one of the gravest of its kind. It added the offence appeared to be the outcome of a calculated design on the part of the convicts to interfere with the course of justice.

The magisterial court also fined the Ansals ₹2.25 crore each. The Ansals sought suspension of the sentence till the appeal against their conviction was decided.

Sushil Ansal’s lawyer told the high court that the “mutilated” documents were not even relevant to his culpability in the main Uphaar trial and his conviction in the tampering case was a “travesty of justice”. He said Sushil Ansal is over 80 and suffered from ailments.

Gopal Ansal’s counsel also argued his client was over 70 and the court should exercise “its wide and liberal discretion” to release him.

The Delhi Police opposed the pleas arguing the petitioners “mutilated vital documents” which were part of the trial record in the main Uphaar case. They added it forced the prosecution to record the secondary evidence in the main case and delayed trial court proceedings.

Association of The Victims of Uphaar Tragedy’s counsel opposed the pleas saying the convicts could not have been allowed to take the law into their hands. The Ansals are “incorrigible’ and matter pertained to “majesty of the law” and “obstruction of justice”, the counsel added.