The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) appeal to argue the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy case further and directed it to file a review petition.
“It will not be proper. We have already passed the order,” a three-judge bench headed by Justice AR Dave said when senior advocate Harish Salve, who has been representing CBI in this case, sought 15 more minutes to argue some of the points in the matter.
“I have been doing this case pro-bono since 2000. Please grant us 15 minutes time from 3.45 to 4 PM today…If the court is not convinced, then throw us out,” Salve said.
The bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel, did not allow the plea and asked the probe agency to file a review petition with all the points which have been left out.
The moves comes a day after the apex court denied a jail term for the Ansal brothers – Sushil and Gopal – but directed them to pay a fine of Rs 30 crore each within a three months to the Delhi government.
The SC ruling had utterly disappointed the victims of the Uphaar fire tragedy and they have now decided to file a review petition along with the CBI in connection with the case. Neelam Krishnamoorthy, mother of Uphaar victims and one of the petitioners in the case said, “f we don’t challenge this order then it will set a very wrong precedent.”
Overturning the pleas of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the victims’ association, a three-judge bench of justices AR Dave, Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel on Wednesday asked Sushil and Gopal Ansal to pay the total fine of Rs 60 crore in three months and deposit it with the Delhi government, which in turn will spend the money on welfare schemes.
While Sushil had spent over five months in prison, Gopal was in jail for over four months immediately after the tragedy.
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 KTS 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 13 June 1997 during the screening of Bollywood film “Border”.
