Rejecting pleas for enhancing their punishment, the Delhi High Court reduced the jail term of real-estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday reduced the jail term of real-estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal for the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire tragedy, which claimed 59 lives. The decision shocked the victims' families, who had moved the court seeking a harsher sentence for those found guilty by the trial court.
Justice Ravinder Bhatt, however, called the appeal "unreasonable" and reduced the jail terms of the Ansal brothers, who were held guilty of criminal negligence by the trial court, from two years to one. The court also acquitted two Uphaar employees, including a manager, and reduced the prison terms of three electricity department and fire brigade officials and a gatekeeper.
The Supreme Court in September had dubbed the Uphaar tragedy "worse than murder" while ordering the arrest of the Ansal brothers, who owned the cinema hall.
The families of the victims, who had come together under the banner of Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (Avut), have been waging a legal battle for the past 11 years to bring the guilty to book. On Friday, Avut members said they were "absolutely disillusioned with the legal system".
"The verdict is a travesty of justice. Sixty lives were lost and the jail term of one year comes to an average of six days per life after court proceedings of 4,206 days. The value of animal life is higher in this country than that of human life," Avut convener Neelam Krishnamoorthy said. Neelam lost her son and daughter in the fire that broke out during the screening of the Hindi film Border on June 13, 1997.
Ramesh Gupta, counsel for Avut, said, "We have a strong case and will challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court."
Though the high court reduced the prison terms of the convicts, it pulled up the CBI for not investigating senior officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) and directed the agency to complete the probe against them by March 15 next year.
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