Uphaar Cinema fire
The Uphaar Cinema fire was one of the worst fire tragedies in recent Indian history. The fire started on Friday, 13 June 1997 at Uphaar Cinema in Green Park, Delhi during the three o'clock screening of the movie Border. Fifty-nine people were trapped inside and died of asphyxiation (suffocation), while 103 were seriously injured in the resulting stampede.
| Date | 13 June 1997 |
|---|---|
| Location | Green Park, Delhi, India |
| Cause | Electric transformer fire due to improper maintenance, leading to stampede |
| Deaths | 59 |
| Non-fatal injuries | 103 |
The victims and the families of the deceased later formed The Association of Victims of Uphaar Fire Tragedy (AVUT), which filed the landmark civil compensation case. It won ₹25 crore (equivalent to ₹63 crore or US$7.9 million in 2023) in compensation for the families of the victims. The case is now considered a breakthrough in civil compensation law in India. However, on 13 October 2011, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice R Raveendran, inexplicably, nearly halved the sum of compensation awarded to victims by the [Delhi high court], and slashed punitive damages to be paid by cinema owners, the Ansal brothers, from ₹2.5 crore (equivalent to ₹5.2 crore or US$650,000 in 2023) to ₹25 lakh (equivalent to ₹52 lakh or US$65,000 in 2023).
In its final order on August 25, 2015, the Supreme Court modified its earlier order and sentenced the Ansal brothers to a two-year jail term if they failed to pay the families of the victims Rs.30 crore each within three months. The Supreme Court reviewed this order again on February 9, 2017, and sentenced Gopal Ansal to a year in jail for the case. The other accused, Sushil Ansal, did not have to serve a further more sentence because of his old age.