The Hindu : New Delhi News : Ansal's plea dismissed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 24, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Ansal's plea dismissed

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, DEC. 23. A Delhi court today dismissed an application by Sushil Ansal, the main accused in the Uphaar fire tragedy case, seeking deletion of certain queries from the list of questions, which the court has prepared for putting them to Mr. Ansal at the time of recording of his statement in the case.

Dismissing the application, the Additional Sessions Judge, Mamata Sehagal, said that no question would be deleted from the list and the accused would have to answer all the questions to be put to him.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had also opposed the application, saying that the accused's plea was not maintainable under law.

In his application, Mr. Ansal had said that the impugned questions put to him by the court were borne of inadmissible evidence, which was not legally proved on record, so, they were inadmissible.

Therefore, only incriminating evidence, which was both admissible and relevant, could be put to him, and any evidence, which could not be used against him, could not be put to him, he stated. Mr. Ansal further said that of 723 questions put to him by the court till now, as many as 710 were based on unproven documents which had only been marked and not exhibited according to the due process of law.

The investigating agency said that while recording the statement of the accused in the case, the court need not consult or hear counsel of any party.

Rebutting the argument by Mr. Ansal, the investigating agency said that the questions, which the accused had described as legally untenable, were very important to prove the stake of Mr. Ansal in Messrs Ansal Theatres and Clubotels Pvt. Ltd., the owning company of the cinema hall.

It further submitted that to prove the documents, which the accused persons had described as unproven, handwritings and signatures of the witnesses concerned - Pranav Ansal, Ritu Ansal, Divya Ansal, Kushagra Ansal, Kusum Ansal and others could be taken for comparison with the documents which bore the signatures of the witnesses.

When the trial court had called these witnesses to identify their respective signatures on the documents earlier, they failed to identify them authentically; therefore, the documents were not exhibited in the court.

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