Uphaar evidence tampering: Delhi HC reserves order on appeals of Ansal brothers

The Delhi High Court reserved the order on the petition moved by businessmen Sushil and Gopal Ansal in the Uphaar evidence tampering caseThe lower court had awarded them seven years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 225 crore on each of them The court will hear the appeal on conviction on February 23 Justice Subramonium Prasad reserved the order after hearing the arguments of the counsel for convicts and for the victims of the Uphaar TragedyThe bench said We will try to pronounce the judgment on the petition before the date of hearing in the trial court If in any case it is not pronounced by then I will direct the trial court to continue the hearing on appeals Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi Counsel for Ansal submitted before the bench that no judicial system considered the primary conviction as finalThere is a need to adopt a larger view and not a tactical one Singhvi said that it was alleged that I delayed the trial which is not true We had challenged the summoning order on charge even during that period trial was not stay He further submitted with regards to the allegations related to the conspiracy of tampering with evidence there is no direct evidence of tampering The only ground was that I would be the beneficiary of delayThe senior advocate argued everything was based on the point of benefit from conspiracy But there cannot be an openended continuing conspiracy He said 95 per cent of documents were those whose author was not examined In this situation admissibility of those document cant go without the authenticity of the author Senior Advocate Arvind Nigam counsel on behalf of Sushil Ansal submitted that he was the licensee of the Uphar cinema hallIn this case I gained nothing out of this alleged tampering said Nigam If all the documents were intact and exhibited before the court then what led to this delay is questionable he added Meanwhile Senior Advocate N Hariharan argued on behalf of the Gopal Ansal Motive alone was not sufficient to prove conspiracy There are certain things that need to be proved for the charge of conspiracy There should be a reason to believe that two or more persons conspired to commit an offence he said He also submitted that Gopal Ansal was not attributed to any role for conspiracy Despite that the petitioner was convicted of conspiracy criminal breach of trust and destruction of evidenceHe also claimed that the petitioner did not get any advantage from the alleged conspiracy as documents were missing There is no evidence to connect him to any conspiracy Hariharan also argued that delay was not caused due to alleged conspiracy as the court had allowed the secondary evidence to be placed in the case On the point of delay in trial Hariharan said delays were due to legal challenges and that was the right of the accused still the proceedings at trial court continuedOn the other hand Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey counsel for the petitioner argued that the prosecuting agency took adjournment 226 times it was the prosecution not the accused who took these adjournments Sushil Ansal took only 12 adjournments while Gopal Ansal took only 15 He also submitted before the court that the lungs of the petitioner were affected during the Covid19 subsequent waves In view of the age situation ailment of the petitioner the sentence should be suspended during the pendency of the appeal Dubey said Businessmen Gopal Ansal Sushil Ansal and one other moved the Delhi High Court against the order of Sessions CourtThe Sessions court had not suspended their sentence Earlier they moved Sessions Court against Magistrate Courts order convicting and sentencing them to seven years jail for tampering with evidence in the 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy case Chief Metropolitan Magistrate CMM Court on November 8 sentenced sevenyear imprisonment and imposed Rs 225crore fine each on Sushil and Gopal Ansal for tampering with evidence Additional Session Judge Anil Antil had dismissed their application for suspension of sentence Gopal Ansal Sushil Ansal and PP Batra had appealed against the convictionThe Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court while passing the order also said After thinking over nights and nights I have come to the conclusion that they deserve punishment In the matter Court had earlier convicted businessmen Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal along with their two employees among others in the case related to tampering with the crucial evidence in the 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy case The Court had found all accused guilty under sections 409 201 120B of IPC and pronounced the orderAlong with Ansal brothers a court staff Dinesh Chand Sharma PP Batra Har Swaroop Panwar Anoop Singh and Dharamvir Malhotra were booked in the tampering of evidence case Out of seven accused two accused Har Swaroop Panwar and Dharamvir Malhotra died during the course of the trial At least 59 people died of asphyxia and over 100 others were injured in the stampede after fire broke out in Uphaar cinema on June 13 1997 during the screening of JP Duttas film BorderThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever