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Apex court grants bail to Ansals

Legal Correspondent

High Court had reduced their sentence
They were told to furnish personal bonds for Rs.10,000 each

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal, both sentenced to one-year imprisonment in the Uphaar Cinema fire tragedy case by the Delhi High Court.

Passing orders on their appeals, a Bench consisting of Justices S. B. Sinha and V. S. Sirpurkar granted bail after hearing Ram Jethmalani, senior counsel for the two brothers, and K.T.S. Tulsi, senior counsel for the Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), which had filed a cross-appeal. The Bench asked the brothers to furnish personal bonds for Rs.10,000 each.

Notice issued

On the AVUT’s appeal, the Bench issued notice to the brothers to show cause why their sentence should not be enhanced for an offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The matter had been listed last week before a Bench headed by Justice B. N. Agrawal.

However, since Justice Agrawal recused himself from the case, the matter was listed for Friday before the Bench headed by Justice Sinha.

When Mr. Tulsi submitted that the letter written by counsel for the Ansals to the Supreme Court Registry that the matter should not be listed before the Bench headed by Justice Agrawal amounted to contempt of court, Justice Sinha told him that he could file a separate petition in this regard.

The High Court, while upholding the trial court order convicting the Ansal brothers under Section 304-A (rash and negligent act) of the Indian Penal Code, reduced the sentence of imprisonment from two years to one year.

The special leave petitions filed by the two brothers were directed against this judgment dated December 19 last.

They contended that they were wrongly convicted and that they had already served over five months in prison. They said though their offence was bailable, the bail was cancelled on September 10 last year and since then they had been in jail.

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