A Delhi court on Tuesday issued a non bailable warrant (NBW) against Uphaar cinema hall owners, Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal Sushil, for alleged tampering with evidence of the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy case of 1997.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat issued the NBW against them for March 28 as they failed to appear before the court. The court is conducting trial in the case three days in a week on a Delhi High Court direction to conclude it by November 30.
Taking cognisance of a supplementary chargesheet filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi police in 2008 for allegedly removing, tampering and mutilating important documents of the Uphaar fire tragedy case in conspiracy with a clerk in a court at the Patiala House courts in 2003, an Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) had summoned the Ansals and other accused in the case.
The investigating agency chargesheeted them under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen offenders) and 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code. The other accused who are being prosecuted in the case are Anoop Singh, Prem Prakash Batra and Dinesh Chandra Sharma, the court clerk.
The chargesheet said that court clerk Dinesh Chand Sharma was the henchman of the Ansals. They had entered into a conspiracy with him for tampering with the evidence. The charge was prima facie made out against the Ansals on the ground that Prem Prakash Batra had got the clerk a job following his dismissal from the court service at twice the normal salary in A-Plus Security Agency which also provided security services to a company under the control of the Ansals, the chargesheet said.
The EOW had registered the case in 2006 on a High Court direction on a petition by Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy convenor Neelam Krishnamurthy.
The removal and tampering with the papers came to light when the public prosecutor in the case had in 2003 noticed that several documents filed along with the chargesheet were missing from the court record or had been tampered with or mutilated by tearing off or sprinkling ink on them. The prosecutor had brought this to the notice of the court. The court had ordered an inquiry into it and later ordered dismissal of the clerk on the basis of probe report.