Victims’ relatives wanted Ansals’ jail term increased

New Delhi: Real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal on Wednesday escaped being jailed in the 18-year-old Uphaar Cinema fire. The SC also restricted their jail term to the period already undergone by them.  The bench rejected the submissions of senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for CBI, that the convicts be sent to jail to serve the remaining jail term. “My instruction from CBI is to press for their custody,” Salve said, when the court sought his views.

Senior advocate K.T.S. Tulsi, who represented the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), also said that the convicts not only be jailed, but rather their punishment should be enhanced. Fifty-nine people, trapped in the balcony of the theatre in South Delhi, had died of asphyxia following the fire and over 100 were injured in the subsequent stampede on June 13, 1997, during the screening of Border.

Earlier, a bench of justices T.S. Thakur and Gyan Sudha Mishra (since retired) had on March 5, 2014, held real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal guilty, but differed on the quantum of sentence to be awarded to them. It had concurred in holding that there was “contemptuous disregard” of civic laws on  part of the Ansals that led to the tragedy as they were “more interested in making money than ensuring safety of people”.

Justice Thakur had concurred with the 2008 verdict of the Delhi HC which had awarded one-year jail term to both Sushil and Gopal Ansal. However, Justice Mishra had reduced the jail term to the period already served in jail by Sushil considering his age and enhanced the sentence of Gopal to two years. During the hearing on Wednesday, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani began his submission accusing employees of Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) and said they escaped as they were government servants.

On the the morning of the fateful day, a minor fire had broken out in the transformer and the DVB sent some small time ‘mistri’ instead of experts to fix the problem, he said. “Mr Jethmalani, you cannot argue against the conviction. We can hear you only on quantum of sentence,” the bench said, adding that the previous bench had already upheld the conviction.

“File a review, if you want to challenge it,” the court said.There was sharp exchange of words between Tulsi and Jethmalani when the former objected to the narration of facts. “You sit down. I am entitled to raise it again and again,” Jethmalani told Tulsi. Earlier, the Ansals had challenged their conviction and claimed they were in no way  responsible for the tragedy as the fire had been caused by a faulty DVB transformer.