PANAJI
Twenty-five people died in the Birch nightclub fire, but the Sessions Court’s bail order did not even refer to the ‘enormity of the offence’, the High Court of Bombay at Goa observed while cancelling the bail granted to three accused.
Justice Neela Gokhale, in an order pronounced on Tuesday, cancelled bail granted to Birch owners Gaurav Luthra and Saurabh Luthra and their business partner Ajay Gupta, directing them to surrender within two days. The order covers the fire case registered by Anjuna police and forgery and cheating case registered by Mapusa police.
The High Court said the Sessions Court had reduced the matter to the filing of a chargesheet instead of examining the material allegedly linking the accused to the offences. “A plain reading of the impugned order reveals not a word on the enormity of the offence. The gravity of the offence must not be undermined,” the court said.
It also rejected the Sessions Court’s attempt to treat the alleged forgery separately from the fire. The accused allegedly used forged clearances to obtain licences and operate an unauthorised venue while ignoring safety requirements. The court said the accused and their partners knew that combustible material covered the restaurant roof but continued operations and allowed cold pyro fireworks. “House number was distorted to procure a trade licence, which in turn was used to forge the health NOC, and all this for the purpose of procuring the Excise licence,” the court said.
The Bench noted that the absence of valid licences was significant as the restaurant also lacked mandatory safety installations. It linked the failure to install fire extinguishers and other safety measures to the circumstances in which 25 people died. The court also questioned the accused’s conduct after the tragedy. The Luthra brothers fled to Phuket, Thailand, while Gupta switched off his phone and left for Delhi. This, the court said, showed they had “shrugged off” responsibility for the deaths.
The Sessions Court had treated the filing of the chargesheet as a changed circumstance warranting bail. The High Court disagreed, noting that the lower court had not identified any substantial material in the chargesheet that justified changing its earlier decision to reject bail. “Merely holding the chargesheet as a changed circumstance is not sufficient ground to grant bail,” it held.
The High Court also faulted the Sessions Court and Mapusa JMFC for effectively conducting mini-trials at the bail stage. It questioned their treatment of the Health NOC as not being a ‘valuable security’ and their reliance on parity when bail orders concerning co-accused were already under challenge before the High Court.
The court further noted that the Sessions Court had imposed no requirement for periodic attendance before the investigating officer or for seeking permission before travelling within India. “There is no application of mind in granting bail to the Respondent,” the High Court said, holding that neither the filing of the chargesheet nor court docket congestion could reduce the seriousness of offences carrying punishment of up to life imprisonment.
