The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the review petition filed by the CBI and the victims’ association in the Uphaar fire tragedy case.
The petitioners have asked the Supreme Court to review its verdict which ordered no jail term for Ansals.
On 6 November, the CBI had sought the Supreme Court asking for a recall of its order letting off the Ansal brothers - Sushil and Gopal. The court had granted relief to the brothers upon paying Rs 30 crore each, coupled with the sentence they have already served for the 1997 fire tragedy in the Uphaar cinema owned by them.
A bench of Justice Anil R Dave, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel on August 19 had let off the Ansal brothers and in their reasoned order of 22 September. The bench said that the magnitude of the Uphaar fire tragedy may call for “higher sentence” but it could not go beyond the choices under the law.
On 13 June 1997, 59 people had died as they could not leave the burning cinema due to blocked exits.
The CBI in its review plea has contended:
- The order on the sentence was in “violation of principles of natural justice, suffers from error apparent on law and has resulted in grave miscarriage of justice”.
- The relevant paragraphs of the judgement on conviction and crucial evidence showing the extent of negligence of the accused (Ansal brothers), which had a direct bearing on sentence were not brought to the notice of the court on account of paucity of time.
- The age of the accused should not and cannot be factored in the present case as a mitigating circumstance.
The apex court in its 22 September order had said:
It hardly needs to be mentioned that an appropriate sentence has to be awarded by taking into consideration the gravity of the offence, the manner of commission, the age of the accused and other mitigating and aggravating circumstances. The sentence should neither be excessively harsh nor ridiculously low.
The CBI in its review plea said,
The matter has been contested by the CBI and supported by the victims’ group vigorously. The trial was successfully delayed by the accused until such time as a directive was issued by the high court to speed up the trial.
The trial court on November 20, 2007, had convicted the Ansal brothers and others and sentenced them to two years jail each but the high court by its December 19, 2008, verdict convicted them under a different section of the Indian Penal Code and reduced their sentence to one year each.
(With inputs from IANS.)
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