NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday reserved its order on a plea by real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal seeking suspension of their 7-year jail term in the Uphaar fire evidence tampering case.
Justice Subramonium Prasad heard the arguments on behalf of counsel for Ansals, another convicted person Anoop Singh Karayat, Delhi Police, and Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT).
Ansals and former court staff Dinesh Chand Sharma and two others -- P P Batra and Anoop Singh Karayat ‘were awarded a seven-year jail term by a trial court and the sessions court had refused to suspend the sentence and release them on bail. While dismissing Ansals’ plea for suspension of sentence till the appeal against the conviction by a magisterial court is decided, the sessions court had said that the case was one of the gravest of its kind and the offence appeared to be the outcome of a calculated design by the convicts to interfere with the proceedings.
Seeking to suspend the jail term, the counsel for Ansals had contended before the high court that the ‘mutilated’ documents were not even relevant to his culpability in the main Uphaar trial and his conviction in the evidence tampering case was a ‘travesty of justice’. He had highlighted that Sushil Ansal was over 80 years of age and suffered from various ailments.
Juhi Chawla didn't take up issue casually: HC
The High Court on Thursday expunged remarks made in an order against actress Juhi Chawla that she had filed the lawsuit challenging setting up of 5G wireless networks in the country, citing health hazards, for gaining publicity.
A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh also reduced the costs imposed on her from I20 Lakh to I2 lakh, saying that she did not take up the 5G issue in a ‘frivolous and casual manner’. The court said part amount of the costs will be retained as applications filed were meritless.