Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 16: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to suspend the seven-year term awarded to real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal in the Uphaar fire tragedy evidence tampering case.
“As far as Ansal brothers are concerned, I am rejecting their application,” said Justice Subramonium Prasad hearing the matter.
Dinesh Chand Sharma, a former court employee, and two others, P.P. Batra and Anoop Singh Karayat, were sentenced to seven years in prison by a trial court last year, and the sessions court declined to postpone the sentence and release them on bail.
The sessions court had dismissed the Ansals’ request for a stay of execution until their appeal against their conviction by a magisterial court was decided, saying that the case was one of the most serious of its kind and that the offence appeared to be the result of a calculated attempt by the convicts to obstruct the course of justice.
Meanwhile, the Ansal brothers had petitioned the high court for a stay of execution on many grounds, including their advanced age.
The Delhi Police and the Association of the Victims of the Uphaar Tragedy opposed the petition (AVUT).
When the tampering was discovered for the first time on July 20, 2002, a departmental investigation was launched against Sharma, and he was suspended. After an investigation, he was dismissed from his position on June 25, 2004.
The Ansals were also fined 2.25 crore each by the magisterial court, in addition to serving a seven-year sentence in the case.
The lawsuit was filed at the request of AVUT chairperson Neelam Krishnamoorthy, who had filed a petition with the Delhi High Court.
