First Conviction Not Final, Presumption Of Innocence Continues Till Last Court Of Appeal: Arguments For Ansal Brothers In Delhi HC, Order Reserved

Justice Subramonium Prasad on Thursday heard Senior Advocates Dr. AM Singhvi and Arvind Nigam for the duo.

At the outset, Singhvi argued that while there is no such thing as presumption of innocence after conviction, but no system considers first conviction as final. He added that the very presence of Section 389 in CrPC (releasing appellant on bail, while suspension of sentence pending the appeal) means that there is "no presumption of continued incarceration" while the appeal is pending.

Supporting this argument, Nigam relied on the case of Padam Singh v. State of UP (2000) 1 SCC 621, where it was held that it is the duty of the appellate court to "look into the evidence adduced in the case and arrive at an independent conclusion as to whether the said evidence can be relied upon or not and even if it can be relied upon, then whether the prosecution can be said to have been proved beyond reasonable doubt on the said evidence."

He contended that the appellate court, like the trial court, has to be satisfied affirmatively that the prosecution case is substantially true and the guilt of the accused has been proved beyond all reasonable doubt as "the presumption of innocence with which the accused starts, continues right through until he is held guilty by the final court of appeal and that presumption is neither strengthened by an acquittal nor weakened by a conviction in the trial court."

Singhvi also urged the Court to take an holistic approach in the matter, through the prism of personal liberty, realness of Covid-19 and the respective ages of the petitioners, to "balance the scales of justice".

Earlier, the prosecution had argued that the Ansal brothers are themselves responsible for a delayed trial by indulging in tampering of evidence, and hence, they cannot now seek suspension of their jail term.

Responding to this, the counsels today submitted that the prosecution has "reverse engineered" an alleged conspiracy for their benefit and that there was no actual delay in the proceedings, nor any benefit from the alleged delay.

It is argued that Ansals gained nothing from the destruction of the documents; since as the licensee of the cinema, he couldn't have run away from the tragedy. "There was no causa causans (the real, proximate, or final link to the cause of something), between my client and the Tragedy," Nigam argued.

He added that the duo wasn't the reason behind any delay as it was the prosecution that did not bring a witness or prove a document to prove their case.

On the last date, Senior Advocates Hariharan and Pramod K. Dubey had argued for Gopal Ansal.

Hariharan had submitted that a conspiracy is defeated by three modes – discovery, abortion of the conspiracy or fulfilment of the object. In this case, he argued, the alleged conspiracy came to an end the moment the documents were discovered in 2003. Therefore the accused have not benefitted from any supposed delays after that it was his case.

Dubey had argued that the prosecution cannot allege that the trial was delayed by the accused, when the Trial Court proceedings were adjourned 226 times, not at the behest of the accused. Gopal Ansal had requested for adjournment on 14 occasions and Sushil Ansal had requested for adjournment 12 times. 

Previously Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan had appeared and argued for the prosecution and Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa represented the Association of Victims of Uphaar Fire Tragedy (AVUT), along with complainant Neelam Krishnamoorthy.

The judgment is likely to be pronounced before 23 February 2022.

Case Title: Sushil Ansal v. State NCT of Delhi CRL.M.C. 3276/2021, Gopal Ansal v. State, CRL.M.C. 3277/2021, Anoop Singh Karayat v. State CRL.M.C. 3517/2021