Delhi Court Frames Charges Against Uphaar Cinema Tragedy Accused For Wrongfully Securing Passport

A Delhi Court has framed charges against real estate baron Sushil Ansal for securing passport by supplying false information and suppressing his criminal antecedents, including his conviction in the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy case.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Shriya Agrawal of Patiala House Courts framed charges against Ansal for the offences under Sections 420 (cheating), 177 (furnishing false information to a public servant) and 181 (false statement on oath or affirmation to a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and Section 12 of the Passports Act.

“Based on the material gathered during investigation, it is obscrved that prima facie, the Accused has consciously concealed the details of criminal cases pending against him as also the order of conviction, in the sworn affidavit filed by him with the passport application filed by him in the year 2013, in the teeth of Section 12 of the Passports Act, as also to have concealed other cases pending against him in the undertaking given with application filed in the year 2018, to induce under misrepresentation, the RPO into issuing the Passport at the relevant time,” the Court said.

It added that subsequent acknowledgment of 'unintentional mistake' by Ansal cannot crode his previous culpability, as he had remained in possession and used the passport throughout, based on misleading declarationsC in breach of the statutory requirements.

It noted that without such misdeclaration or concealment in the two sets of applications made by Ansal, with aid of deficient police verification reports, the authority would not have issued the Passports to him.

“The Accused thus, has induced the authority into acting in a certain way based on false/ deficient information, benefiting therefrom, by way of gaining wrongfully by being issued the Passport, thereby committing offences punishable under Sections 420 IPC and Section 12 of the Passports Act,” the Court said.

“As regards the offences punishable under Sections 177 and 181 IPC, in the same light, in the facts above noted, with the Accused not only having furnished false information to a public servant, where the person was under an obligation to furnish true information, and also to have filed a false affidavit with a public servant, both these offences are also made out in the present case,” it added.

However, the judge said that offences under Sections 192 and 197 of IPC were not attracted as passport processing is not a “judicial proceeding.”

The case was registered after a ruling was passed by the Delhi High Court in December 2018 in a criminal writ petition filed by Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) through its General Secretary- R. Krishnamoorthy.

During the proceedings, Sushil Ansal procured Passports on multiple occasions on applications which were either replete with misdeclarations or suppression of correct facts.

The prosecution alleged that Ansal obtained passports in 2000, 2004 and 2013, suppressing his criminal antecedents, including his conviction in the Uphaar cinema fire case and several pending FIRs.

In the affidavit filed by him in 2013 regarding re-issuance application, he allegedly falsely declared that no criminal proceedings or convictions existed against him in the preceding five years.

As many as 59 people died and 100 were injured in the fire during the screening of the Hindi blockbuster film "Border" at Uphaar Cinema on the evening of June 13, 1997. The fire started in the parking lot and then engulfed the building in the busy Green Park area.

Negligence was imputed on the part of Ansal brothers (cinema owners), saying that most people died in the ensuing stampede or were asphyxiated as the escape routes were blocked by illegally fixed chairs.

The trial court sentenced the Ansal brothers to 2 years' rigorous imprisonment in November 2007. But in December 2008, the Delhi High Court reduced their sentence to one year.

In 2015, the Supreme Court let off the Ansals, while imposing a fine of Rs.30 crores each to be paid as penalty to the government within 3 months. A trauma facility was to be constructed in Dwarka utilizing this amount.

In November 2021, the Ansals were convicted to seven years in prison in the evidence tampering case. The trial court had also imposes a fine of Rs 2.5 crore on each of them.

However, after upholding the conviction, Principal District & Sessions Court released Ansals against the period already undergone by them in jail.