Charge against MCD officers not quashed in Uphaar case

new delhi: the delhi high court on tuesday dismissed the plea of two uphaar cinema tragedy accused, seeking discharge from the charge of culpable homicide framed by the trial court. dismissing the revision application of the two accused mcd administration officers shyam sunder sharma and n d tiwari, justice r s sodhi accepted the prosecution argument that they were not authorised to issue a no objection certificate to the cinema hall as only engineers could do that.declining to quash or amend the charges, the court said they could raise their points of defence before the trial court. fifty-nine lives were perished and more than 100 were injured after fire engulfed uphaar cinema hall during a matinee show of hindi blockbuster border on june 13, 1997. tiwari had taken the plea that he had retired on march 31, 1997, — much before the incident occurred, so he could not be connected to the offence. sharma had taken the plea that tiwari had issued the noc for the year 1996-97 while he had issued the noc for the preceding year 1995-96 so he could not be held responsible. rejecting the pleas of the accused, the court accepted solicitor general harish salve's argument that the tragedy was a result of a chain of events of which all these accused were inseparable links. in another court of justice r c chopra, the order has been reserved on the revision of charges on the two accused — sushil ansal and n s chopra. ansal's lawyers claimed that he had ceased to be director of the company that owned the cinema before the fire tragedy, thus he should be discharged. on the other hand, the families of the victims have prayed the court that the owners of the cinema hall should be charged with more stringent provisions of the law as they were directly responsible for compromising safety features and knew that fire could break out again. all the 16 accused have moved the high court for revision of charges. besides sushil ansal, his brother gopal ansal, public works department employee s n dandona, two mcd employees shyam sundar sharma and n d tiwari and two delhi fire service officials h s panwar and surinder dutt are being tried for rash and negligence act, causing hurt and causing grievous injury under ipc and for violation of provisions of cinematograph act. other accused who face trial for charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and other provisions of the ipc and cinematograph act are: cinema director r m puri, deputy general manager k l malhotra, managers radha krishan sharma, ajit chaudhury, n s chopra, three dvb officials b m satija, a k gera and bir singh and balcony usher manmohan unniyal.