By IANS
New Delhi : A city court was likely to pronounce Friday the quantum of sentence for the 12 people, including real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal, convicted for their role in the Uphaar cinema hall fire tragedy which claimed 59 lives in 1997.
Additional Sessions Judge Mamta Sehgal will continue hearing the arguments on the quantum of sentence Thursday.
The court had Tuesday convicted the theatre owners, the Ansal brothers, along with two Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials Shyam Sunder Sharma and N.D. Tiwari and a Delhi Fire Service officer H.S. Panwar under Sections 304A and 337 and 338 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), pertaining to endangering human lives.
The seven other accused were, however, held guilty under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).
The prosecution Wednesday demanded immediate arrest of all the accused.
Special Prosecutor S.K. Saxena asked the court to pass an order for their arrest but the court refused to comment on the issue. The judge made it clear to the prosecution and defence that her decision will not be affected by media reports on the sentencing.
The common submission by all the convicts was that they should be either sentenced only to a fine or be released on probation, as a custodial punishment was not mandatory for the provisions of the law under which they have been held guilty.
The arguments for accused Gopal Ansal could not be completed Wednesday and will continue Thursday.
Defence in its arguments pleaded before the court that the tragedy was an accident and none of the accused was directly involved in it.
Counsel for Sushil Ansal pleaded that he was not responsible for the tragedy and several agencies were to be blamed for that.
Noted lawyer R.K. Naseem, representing Sushil Ansal, said there were two major reasons for the fire. Firstly, the transformer installed at the cinema hall was not properly repaired and, secondly, maintenance of the transformer was not up to the mark.
Counsel for A.K. Gera, a Delhi Vidyut Board inspector, stated that he had gone to the south Delhi cinema to repair a fault in the transformer on the morning of that fateful day.
Prem Kumar, counsel for Gopal Ansal, stated that his client was not even a director of the cinema hall at the time when the tragedy took place and was a mere shareholder of the holding company.
During the arguments, one of the convicts fainted due to suffocation in the jam-packed courtroom.
The convict, Shyam Sunder Sharma, who faces maximum punishment of two years in jail, fell unconscious in the courtroom minutes after the proceedings began in the afternoon. When he regained consciousness after a while, he was asked to sit outside the courtroom.