Uphaar fire tragedy: Man accused of tampering evidence moves court for pardon

An accused in a case related to alleged tampering of records in the 1997 Uphaar Cinema fire tragedy moved a Delhi court on Thursday seeking pardon.

The case also involves real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal, the owners of the cinema.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Manish Khurana put up the application filed by Anoop Singh for hearing on October 1.

In his application filed through advocate Tarun Chandiok, Singh prayed for pardon and volunteered to disclose "full and true disclosure of the whole circumstances within his knowledge insofar as they are relative to the offence entailed in the instant case".

The court is currently recording evidence in the case.

It had on May 31, 2014 ordered framing of charges against the seven accused for abetment of offence, causing disappearance of evidence, criminal breach of trust by public servant and criminal conspiracy.

Theatre owners Gopal and Sushil Ansal, Anoop Singh, Prem Prakash Batra, Harswaroop Panwar, Dharamveer Malhotra as well as a court employee, Dinesh Chandra Sharma, were accused of tampering evidence in the case, pending since 2006.

On June 13, 1997, a fire had broken out at the theatre during the screening of Hindi film 'Border', killing 59 people and injuring over 100.

A court had on January 31, 2003 ordered an inquiry after some documents related to the Uphaar case had gone missing from the courts record room. After an inquiry, the court employee was dismissed from service.