Delhi high court rejects petition to stay release of Netflix show on Uphaar cinema tragedy

The Delhi high court passed an order on Thursday rejecting a plea by Sushil Ansal to stay the airing of Netflix original Trial by Fire based on the Uphaar cinema tragedy that took place in New Delhi in 1997 documented in the book Trial By Fire: The Tragic Tale of the Uphaar Fire Tragedy written by Neelam Krishnamoorthy and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy, published in 2016. 

Justice Yashwant Varma denied interim relief to Ansal and said a detailed order will be uploaded on the court’s website later. 

Ansal, who was convicted for tampering with evidence in the Uphaar tragedy case, has alleged that the book that the show is based on, was replete with false and libellous statements. He had also emphasized that if the web series were to be aired, it would also have a deleterious effect on the outcome of the revision petitions which are pending in court. 

“A series which is based on the book would necessarily result in infringing the right of privacy guaranteed to the plaintiff quite apart from causing irreparable harm to his reputation,” the court order states. 

The defendants, in this case, the producers, however, pointed out that the trial and conviction of the plaintiff was a fact which had been widely reported in various newspapers during the course of the criminal proceedings and that the series is a work of fiction, inspired by the book. Agreeing with the same, the court found that information and reportage with respect to the tragedy has remained in circulation for the past 26 years.  

“Prior to the institution of the present proceedings, the plaintiff neither alleged nor asserted that his right to a fair trial was or had been prejudiced,” the order stated. While the work on which the web series is based has been penned by parents who had lost teenaged children in the incident, there was a need to strike a balance between the aspects of freedom of speech and expression, the dissemination of information amongst the public at large on the one hand and the injury likely to be caused to the individual, it added.