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Synopsis

The Delhi High Court on Monday 'allowed' Chairman of the Ansal API Group, Sushil Ansal, convicted in the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire tragedy case, to withdraw his suit seeking to restrain the release of the Netflix series "Trial by Fire- The tragic tale of the Uphaar Tragedy".

The bench of Justice Yashwant Varma was dealing with a plea against the Netflix series which was released on January 13, after the court ‘rejected’ Ansal’s plea seeking a stay on the release of the series which is based on the 1997 Uphaar Cinema tragedy.

Notably, on January 12, the court while rejecting the stay on the release of the web series had held that: "it is necessary to bear in mind that the work on which the web series is based has been penned by parents who had lost teenage children in the unfortunate incident. It is a story that 'alleges a systemic failure' and manifests a cry of anguish against the manner in which the incident was prosecuted and tried; it essentially represents their perspective and opinion". 

The bench had then opined, "It essentially represents their perspective and opinion. A fictional rendition of their trials and tribulations cannot, prima facie, be presumed to be defamatory. More fundamentally, their personal experience and perception of the incident or the culpability of the plaintiff would remain their belief, impression, and understanding of the entire episode”.

Noting that Sushil Ansal did not take any pre-emptive step at the first available opportunity, the single-judge bench had stated, "There exists no justification to grant ad-interim relief to him even after he failed to take appropriate steps for injunctive reliefs in respect of the Book authored and published in 2016".

“A grant of the injunction at an ad interim or ex parte stage must necessarily be weighed bearing in mind whether the plaintiff has chosen to approach the Court for relief with due promptitude. The case of the plaintiff woefully fails on this score”, the bench had added.

Conclusively, the bench had stated that the narrative of the authors was available in the public sphere right from 2016 and this clearly disentitled the plaintiff from the grant of ad interim reliefs. Thus, the court dismissed the application seeking an ad-interim injunction.

Case Title: Sushil Ansal v. Endemol India Pvt. Ltd. & Ors.