Uphaar cinema fire Delhi court grants 2-day interim bail to convict to attend nieces engagement ceremony
New Delhi Nov 20 PTI A Delhi court on Saturday granted two-day interim bail to a man awarded a seven-year jail term for tampering with evidence in the 1997 case of Uphaar cinema fire which had claimed 59 lives noting there was no elderly male member in the family to make arrangements for his nieces engagement ceremonyAdditional Sessions Judge Anil Antil granted relief to Dinesh Chand Sharma a former court staff sent to jail along with real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal and others by a magisterial court earlier this monthThe relief was granted on Sharmas application that claimed that there was no elderly male member in the family to make arrangements for already scheduled ceremony and he be released for a limited period of seven days to attend the said ceremony of his nieceIt had claimed that the womans father passed away last month and her grandfather also expiredThe court had called for a status report along with verification report regarding the engagement ceremony as well as death verification report of the persons concerned from the investigating officer IOThe IO filed a report verifying the claims made by the accusedDuring the arguments the prosecution submitted that it had no objection if the permission was granted to attend the ceremony for a limited period of only a dayTherefore without adverting to the merits of the case on humanitarian grounds the sentence of conviction of convict Dinesh Chandra Sharma is suspended for two days ie November 21 and 22 and he is allowed to attend the engagement ceremony the court saidThe case is related to tampering with the evidence in the main fire tragedy case in which the Ansals were convicted and sentenced to two-year jail term by the Supreme CourtThe apex court however released them taking into account the prison time they had done on the condition that they pay Rs 30 crore fine each to be used for building a trauma centre in the national capitalA magisterial court on November 8 awarded seven year jail terms to Ansals and Sharma along with individuals P P Batra and Anoop Singh for tempering and other offencesChief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharmaalso imposed a fine of Rs 225 crore on Ansals and Rs three lakh each on other threeAnsals and Sharma have challenged their conviction and jail term before the sessions court and have also urged the court to suspend their punishment while the pendency of the appealThe 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 prosecution said that after the termination the Ansal brothers helped Sharma get employment on a monthly salary of Rs 15000When the case was registered the documents of the company where Sharma was employed post suspension were further tampered with by its chairperson Anoop SinghAccording to the charge sheet the documents alleged to have been tampered with included a police memo giving details of recoveries immediately after the incident Delhi Fire Service records pertaining to repair of transformer installed inside Uphaar minutes of Managing Directors meetings and four chequesOut of the six sets of documents a cheque of Rs 50 lakh issued by Sushil Ansal to self and minutes of the MDs meetings proved beyond doubt that the two brothers were handling the day-to-day affairs of the theater at the relevant time the charge sheet had saidThe fire had broken out at the Uphaar cinema during the screening of the Hindi film Border on June 13 1997 claiming 59 lives The case was lodged on the direction of the Delhi High Court while hearing a petition by AVUT chairperson Neelam Krishnamoorthy PTI UK ZMN
New Delhi Nov 20 PTI A Delhi court on Saturday granted two-day interim bail to a man awarded a seven-year jail term for tampering with evidence in the 1997 case of Uphaar cinema fire which had claimed 59 lives noting there was no elderly male member in the family to make arrangements for his nieces engagement ceremonyAdditional Sessions Judge Anil Antil granted relief to Dinesh Chand Sharma a former court staff sent to jail along with real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal and others by a magisterial court earlier this monthThe relief was granted on Sharmas application that claimed that there was no elderly male member in the family to make arrangements for already scheduled ceremony and he be released for a limited period of seven days to attend the said ceremony of his nieceIt had claimed that the womans father passed away last month and her grandfather also expiredThe court had called for a status report along with verification report regarding the engagement ceremony as well as death verification report of the persons concerned from the investigating officer IOThe IO filed a report verifying the claims made by the accusedDuring the arguments the prosecution submitted that it had no objection if the permission was granted to attend the ceremony for a limited period of only a dayTherefore without adverting to the merits of the case on humanitarian grounds the sentence of conviction of convict Dinesh Chandra Sharma is suspended for two days ie November 21 and 22 and he is allowed to attend the engagement ceremony the court saidThe case is related to tampering with the evidence in the main fire tragedy case in which the Ansals were convicted and sentenced to two-year jail term by the Supreme CourtThe apex court however released them taking into account the prison time they had done on the condition that they pay Rs 30 crore fine each to be used for building a trauma centre in the national capitalA magisterial court on November 8 awarded seven year jail terms to Ansals and Sharma along with individuals P P Batra and Anoop Singh for tempering and other offencesChief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharmaalso imposed a fine of Rs 225 crore on Ansals and Rs three lakh each on other threeAnsals and Sharma have challenged their conviction and jail term before the sessions court and have also urged the court to suspend their punishment while the pendency of the appealThe 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 prosecution said that after the termination the Ansal brothers helped Sharma get employment on a monthly salary of Rs 15000When the case was registered the documents of the company where Sharma was employed post suspension were further tampered with by its chairperson Anoop SinghAccording to the charge sheet the documents alleged to have been tampered with included a police memo giving details of recoveries immediately after the incident Delhi Fire Service records pertaining to repair of transformer installed inside Uphaar minutes of Managing Directors meetings and four chequesOut of the six sets of documents a cheque of Rs 50 lakh issued by Sushil Ansal to self and minutes of the MDs meetings proved beyond doubt that the two brothers were handling the day-to-day affairs of the theater at the relevant time the charge sheet had saidThe fire had broken out at the Uphaar cinema during the screening of the Hindi film Border on June 13 1997 claiming 59 lives The case was lodged on the direction of the Delhi High Court while hearing a petition by AVUT chairperson Neelam Krishnamoorthy PTI UK ZMN
