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News of Jan
6, 2007
Court Urged to Try Uphaar Accused
for Culpable Homicide
New Delhi, Jan 6
The victims of the Uphaar cinema fire of 1997, which claimed 59
lives here, has urged the court to try the accused also for culpable
homicide not amounting to murder. The Association of Victims of
Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) has urged the lower court conducting trial of
the case here that Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal of the Ansal Group
of Companies and three other accused should not only be tried under
Section 304-A (causing death by rash or negligence act) but also
under 304-A (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the
Indian Penal Code (IPC).
They are facing prosecution in the case.
As many as 59 people dies in the fire in the cinema house in south
Delhi June 13, 1997.
Filing a written submission in the court of Additional Sessions
Judge Mamata Sehgal, AVUT counsel K.T.S. Tulsi said the accused had
acted with gross recklessness and culpable negligence by their
dogged refusal and failure to exercise reasonable care, and that
made them liable not only under Section 304-A but also under Section
304.
"The death of 59 innocent persons is directly relatable to the rash
and negligent acts and omissions of the accused persons. Sushil
Ansal and Gopal Ansal had fled away from the spot when the fire had
broken out knowing that there was only one exit on the left in the
balcony of the hall due to closure of the gangway and the second
exit on the left in violation of the rules governing the
architecture of cinema halls in the capital," the submission said.
On the plea for slapping 304 of IPC on Sushil and Gopal Ansal,
former Delhi Fire Service official H.S. Panwar, serving Municipal
Corporation of Delhi (MCD) official Shyam Sunder Sharma and retired
official of the local body N.D. Tewari, the judge said: "The court
is vested with the power, and if it finds that there is sufficient
evidence, it will take a suo motu action for framing an additional
charge under Section 304 of IPC against the accused persons."
On another plea by AVUT to summon Amod Kanth, the deputy
commissioner of police (licensing), as an accused in the case under
Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.), the court
reiterated the above order.
Kanth, currently the Arunachal Pradesh director-general of police,
had allowed the cinema management to retain 37 additional seats in
the balcony in 1979 that had resulted in the closure of the gangway
and the right exit in the balcony, according to the submission.
IANS
News of Jan
6, 2007
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