Ansals cant escape liability for Uphaar cinema tragedy:SC

The Supreme Court said the Ansals,owners of Uphaar Cinema,cannot escape liability for the gruesome June 1997 fire mishap in which 59 people perished.

The Supreme Court today said the Ansals,owners of Uphaar Cinema,cannot escape liability for the gruesome June 1997 fire mishap in which 59 people perished by merely passing the buck to the erstwhile Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB).

A bench of Justices R V Raveendran and K S Radhakrishnan said the theatre owners should not abdicate its liability by merely insisting that the mishap occured due to the fire caused by short circuit emanating from DVBs transoformer.

Blaming DVB is like beating a dead horse,the bench quipped when senior counsel A K Ganguly,appearing for the owners,blamed DVB

for the incident during the screening of the superhit film Border.

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The apex court said it was true that the transformer from where the fire started belonged to DVB but the latter has also accepted responsibility and agreed to pay its share of compensation.

The counsel was all along arguing that on the fateful day there was initially shortcircuit/fire from the transformer in the morning and later again in the evening which resulted in the tragedy.

The apex court said since DVB has accepted its liability and has also chosen not to appeal against the high courts direction for compensation,it was now left to the court to decide the extent of liability of the other three parties– theatre owners,MCD and the DCP (licensing).

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