Whenever people make comparisons between India and China, everyone says, “China may be more efficient and less corrupt, but India has a good judicial system.” Of course it has. Just ask the Ansals, owners of Delhi’s Uphaar Cinema, where a fire broke out 18 years ago killing 59 and injuring over a hundred moviegoers. You can ask the Ansals their view of our judiciary at their palatial homes because the Supreme Court said that they had suffered enough: Sushil and Gopal Ansal spent five and four months in jail, respectively, in the 18 years it took the case to come to final judgment.
Oh yes, and the court asked them to deposit Rs 60 crore with the Delhi government within three months to build a trauma centre. “Blood money”, many of the victims’ families called it. But we know, don’t we, that the blood money concept is only practised in some countries in West Asia, whereas our judicial system upholds the traditional ideal of law: a woman in long robes, with the scales of justice in her hand, her eyes blindfolded so that she cannot differentiate between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the downtrodden? The Uphaar case is only the latest in a long line of cases, which shows that the blindfold worn by our lady of justice is made of very, very fine muslin indeed.
Do you think Rs 60 crore is a lot of money? I suppose for the average you and the average me, it is. But the Ansals are not your average Joes. To start with, the Uphaar Cinema site, locked up until now by the courts, will almost certainly be freed (the Ansals, by the way, have been brazenly appealing for this to happen), and its market value is said to be at least Rs 160 crore.
Then, as a national newspaper points out, there is the current Ansal Esencia project in Gurgaon, which has in all 1,200 residences. Sell 15 high-end villas there, and the Ansals will have their Rs 60 crore. Ansal companies also own considerable real estate elsewhere: nearly 9,000 acres across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab, and a total of 25 ongoing projects in different states across the country. In all, the Ansal companies’ revenue last year was a healthy Rs 1,234 crore.
No one grudges them their wealth, accumulated no doubt by diligence, hard work and foresight. But, you do wonder why they felt the need to make extra money out of Uphaar Cinema by installing additional seats in the theatre which blocked one of its exits — the principle reason why so many people died of asphyxiation when they couldn’t escape. You also wonder why, rich and educated and enlightened as they are, they chose to ignore a similar fire that had broken out in the theatre eight years earlier. Fortunately that had happened in the morning, so the cinema hall was empty, a godsend for lessons to be learnt, which obviously weren’t learnt.
Incidentally, the courts in their judgments came down pretty hard on the Ansals. Here’s the sessions judge Mamta Sehgal in 2007: “The deviations with regard to the seating arrangement in the balcony which resulted in the death of many patrons and injuries to many, had been effected with greed in mind without taking note of the injury that may be caused,” she had said. She also held them responsible for “various structural deviations effected by conniving with authorities and corrupting them to utilise every corner of the building for more profits, without concern for the safety of patrons.” However, she ruled that the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code) that could have entailed a life term, was not applicable here; instead, Section 304 A, causing death due to negligence, was applicable. The maximum sentence of two years under that section was awarded, though Ms Sehgal did say that this was grossly inadequate in this case.
Yet, see what happened next. On the Ansals’ appeal, the Delhi high court heard the case, agreed with all observations of the sessions court, yet decided that the “imposition of maximum sentence is not justified”! It added that the “ends of justice would be served if the sentence is modified to rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and a fine of Rs 5,000.”
When the case went to the Supreme Court on the appeal of the victims, Justice T.S. Thakur and Gyan Sudha Misra agreed that the Ansal brothers had “contemptuous disregard” for the law, upheld the findings of the earlier judgments and confirmed the conviction. Justice Thakur said the sentence should be one year in jail while Justice Misra said it should be two years, with the second year being substituted by a fine of Rs 100 crore.
Since the judges differed on the quantum of punishment, a three-judge bench heard the case. It said the four to five months already served in jail were enough punishment, and reduced the fine to Rs 60 crore. One of the reasons for reduction of the jail sentence was that one brother was of “an advanced age”. Since age obviously tugged at the judges’ heartstrings, why didn’t they remember that 23 of those who died in the Uphaar fire were minors, and had a full life ahead of them?
One more thing about this case. At the last hearing, the Supreme Court’s three judges heard the senior defence lawyer Ram Jethmalani extensively, while only briefly listening to Central Bureau of Investigation counsel Aparajita Singh. When she requested that the hearing should continue the next morning so that CBI’s senior lawyer Harish Salve could address the court, the judges refused. The next day Mr Salve said to the judges, “I need just 15 minutes to point out glaring facts in the case and attempt to persuade the court to reconsider its decision.”
But the judges said that would be improper: they had already dictated their order!
And so it goes. Who can forget the way the Bombay high court held an unprecedented late hearing so that Salman Khan could get bail and wouldn’t have to spend a night in jail? Or the J. Jayalalithaa case which had to be transferred from Tamil Nadu to Karnataka for a fair trial, in spite of which, when she came back to power, witnesses — 70 of them — suddenly all turned hostile, and the case against her collapsed?
So you see the justice system in India does work. It works for some of the people, all the time.
The writer is a senior journalist
