By Rana Ajit, IANS
New Delhi : The verdict of a Delhi court which found real estate barons Gopal and Sushil Ansal guilty of mere negligence in causing the Uphaar fire a decade ago is trite, compared to the path breaking first information report (FIR) registered by the Delhi Police.
The Ansal brothers were Tuesday held guilty of causing death due to negligence under Section 304 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Though the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had diluted the charges against the real estate tycoons when it took over the case of the 1997 fire in which 59 people were killed in the cinema hall, the Delhi Police had tried to walk a different path.
Finding the Uphaar theatre owners guilty of systematic failure in taking safety measures, the police had booked the Ansals for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304, which entailed a jail term of up to 10 years on conviction.
Now the brothers, who are the prime accused in the case, face only two years in jail at the most.
Reacting to the verdict by the Additional Sessions Judge Mamta Sehgal, leading criminal lawyer K.K. Manan told IANS: “It’s time the parliament amended the law to make the punishment under 304 A of IPC more stringent. The lawmakers must provide for a punishment of at least 10 years in such cases of causing deaths due to any rash or negligent act.
Former additional solicitor K.K. Sood echoed Manan’s view, though the maximum jail term he wanted was seven years, not 10.
“The punishment prescribed under section 304 A of the IPC should be increased from the maximum of two years to seven years,” said Sood.
Sood also favoured making the offence non-bailable. A person accused of committing a non-bailable offence can secure bail only from a court. But when the offence is bailable, the police are empowered to release suspects on bail.
The FIR registered by police in the Uphaar fire tragedy was a trend-setting one in more ways than one, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
Till the Uphaar FIR, he said, most cases of fatal accidents like deaths from fire, road accidents or building collapse were dismissed under 304 A — letting off the owner of the fire-hit building or the driver of a killer vehicle with just causing death by rashness or negligence.
The harsher charge of unintentional killing was seldom evoked.
But not any more.
In January 1999, two years after the Uphaar fire, police invoked Section 304 in the BMW hit-and-run case, involving former naval chief S.M. Nanda’s grandson Sanjeev Nanda, who allegedly mowed down six people in the capital while driving his car under the influence of alcohol.
The next year, the same charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder was slapped against actor Salman Khan, accused of killing one person in Mumbai in a hit-and-run case.
And in November 2007, Alister Pareira, who had killed seven people while driving under the influence of alcohol in Mumbai, was also booked for unintentional killing.
The Ansals have been convicted for negligence. They will be sentenced Friday.
The court of Delhi’s additional sessions judge Mamta Sehgal had the choice of acknowledging the gravity of the case and convicting the Ansal brothers under the more stringent charge of Section 304. But it chose not to do so. As a result, families of the victims of the tragedy feel they have not won their battle yet.
“For taking the life of a chinkara, they give five years in jail. And when 59 people die, you give two years. What kind of justice is this?” asked Neelam Krishnamoorthy, who lost two children in the fire.
It’s a moot question. The Association of the Victims of the Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) is set to challenge the sessions court’s judgement before the Delhi High Court and seek the Ansals’ conviction on charges of unintentional killing.
The story is not yet over.
(Ajit Rana can be contacted at [email protected])