Uphaar case: Ansals assure court they will not leave India

New Delhi, December 5

Real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal on Monday assured the Supreme Court that they would not leave India until it begins hearing a plea by victims' association seeking a review of its verdict in the 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy.

The Supreme Court in 2015 had said that real estate barons were required to serve two years jail term, if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each as fine in the matter.

A bench headed by Justice JS Khehar asked the Ansals on Monday for an undertaking that they will not leave the country until the court hears the review petition.

Senior advocate KTS Tulsi, appearing for Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), said Ansals may flee the country and that an order should be passed to restrain them.

The AVUT wanted an urgent hearing by a bench that Chief Justice TS Thakur headed, but a new bench was constituted to hear the review petitions filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the association for reviewing the 2015 verdict.

Following the judgement, the Ansals had deposited the amount.

However, Justice Dave, who headed the three-judge bench, which had heard the matters in the Uphaar case, retired on November 18.

Fifty-nine people had died of asphyxia when a fire broke out during the screening of Bollywood movie 'Border' in Uphaar theatre in Green Park area of South Delhi on June 13, 1997.

More than a 100 were also injured in the subsequent stampede.

In its review plea, AVUT had said the apex court judgement "bestows an unwarranted leniency on convicts whose conviction in the most heinous of offences has been upheld by all courts including this court and sentences imposed on them have been substituted with fine without assigning any reason". — PTI