Owners of Mumbai’s Kamala Mills compound discharged in 2017 fire case; other accused to face trial

The sessions court on Tuesday discharged Ramesh Gowani and Ravi Bhandari – the two owners of the Kamala Mills compound – booked in connection with the 2017 inferno

The sessions court on Tuesday discharged Ramesh Gowani and Ravi Bhandari – the two owners of the Kamala Mills compound – booked in connection with the 2017 inferno which broke out in a restaurant located inside the compound. The court however, refused to discharge the owners of the restaurant, some civic body officials and other accused.

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Special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty said that the detailed order is yet to come and the prosecution would take further action only after going through it. Gowani and Bhandari had claimed that they cannot be booked for the incident as they had no connection with it.

On December 29, 2017 around 12.30am, a fire broke in 1Above and Mojo’s Bistro restaurants, which killed 14 guests and injured several others. The investigation had claimed that the blaze broke out first at 1Above restaurant owing to hookah embers, and later spread to Mojo’s Bistro. The NM Joshi Police had booked 14 accused, including the owners of the restaurants and their employees, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials and the owners of Kamala Mills compound.

Meanwhile, the court rejected the plea for discharge of the other accused, who include the owners of 1Above restaurant, Kripesh Mansukh Sanghavi and Jigar Mansukh Sanghavi: two managers of 1Above, Lisbon Lopes and Kevin Bawa; the owner of Mojo’s Bistro pub, Yug Ravindrapal Singh Tuli; fire officer Rajendra Baban Patil; BMC’s G South ward sub-engineer Dinesh Yashwant Mahale; assistant divisional fire officer (Worli division) Sandeep Shivaji Shinde and hotelier Vishal Kariya.

All the accused had been booked under various charges, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder. They had claimed that the charge of culpable homicide is not applicable to the case as the accused had no intention to cause death.

However, the prosecution had contended that all the accused had failed to abide by the law and there were several irregularities in the fire safety system at the restaurants, which ultimately resulted in the death of innocents.

The court has ordered that the accused would face trial for the charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder along with the other charges filed against them.