New Delhi Jan 27 PTI The Delhi High Court Thursday reserved its order on a plea by real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal seeking suspension of their seven-year jail term in the Uphaar cinema evidence tampering caseJustice Subramonium Prasad heard the arguments on behalf of counsel for Ansals another convicted person Anoop Singh Karayat Delhi Police and Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy AVUTAnsals and former court staff Dinesh Chand Sharma and two others -- P P Batra and Anoop Singh Karayat were awarded a seven-year jail term by a trial court and the sessions court had refused to suspend the sentence and release them on bailWhile dismissing Ansals plea for suspension of sentence till the appeal against the conviction by a magisterial court is decided the sessions court had said that the case was one of the gravest of its kind and the offence appeared to be the outcome of a calculated design on the part of the convicts to interfere with the course of justiceSeeking to suspend the jail term the counsel for Sushil Ansal had contended before the high court that the mutilated documents were not even relevant to his culpability in the main Uphaar trial and his conviction in the evidence tampering case was a travesty of justiceHe had highlighted that Sushil Ansal was over 80 years of age and suffered from various ailmentsGopal Ansals counsel had also argued that his client was over 70 years of age and the court should exercise its wide and liberal discretion to release himThe plea was opposed by the Delhi Police and AVUTThe counsel for the police had argued that the petitioners mutilated vital documents which formed part of the trial record in the main Uphaar cinema case which forced the prosecution to record the secondary evidence in the main case and resulted in an enormous delay of trial court proceedingsHe had also claimed that the pandemic cannot be the basis to allow the prayers of the petitioners who no longer have the presumption of innocence in their favourAVUTs counsel had opposed the plea contending that the accused persons cannot be allowed to take law in their hands and claimed that the Ansals were incorrigible and that the instant matter pertained to majesty of the law and obstruction of justiceThe court was also informed that in the main case the petitioners were convicted and sentenced to a 2-year jail term by the Supreme Court which subsequently released them on payment of Rs 30 crore fine each after taking into account the prison time they had doneThe tampering was detected for the first time on July 20 2002 and when it was unearthed a departmental enquiry was initiated against Sharma and he was suspendedLater an enquiry was conducted and he was terminated from services on June 25 2004The magisterial court had also imposed a fine of Rs 225 crore each on the Ansals apart from imposing a seven-year jail term in the caseThe case was lodged on the direction of the Delhi High Court while hearing a petition by AVUT chairperson Neelam Krishnamoorthy PTI SKV SKV RKS RKS