© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
A Delhi court last week ordered framing of charges against Sushil Ansal, convicted in the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire that killed 59 people, for alleged procurement of passports on “false information”.
“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,” said Chief Judicial Magistrate Shriya Agrawal on November 28.
The case stems from a Delhi High Court order passed in December 2018 on a petition filed by the Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT).
Ansal had allegedly concealed the details of criminal cases pending against him and had obtained multiple passports by making false declarations or by suppressing material facts.
“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.
The prosecution had argued before the court that Ansal applied for a passport on multiple occasions in 2000, 2004 and 2013 by suppressing facts. It was also argued that in 2013, he had allegedly filed an affidavit, affirming falsely that there were neither any criminal proceedings pending against him nor any order of conviction against him.
In July 2022, a Delhi court had granted relief to Ansal, ordering his release from jail in a case of tampering with evidence in the Uphaar fire tragedy. The court had observed that a trial court had earlier passed a sentence that was “punitive and retributive in nature” to teach him a lesson. A magistrate court had also convicted him and awarded a seven-year jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 2.25 crore.
In 2015, the Supreme Court had slapped a fine of Rs 60 crore on Ansal and his brother in lieu of a custodial sentence which was deposited with the Delhi government.
