SANJAY GUPTA Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The 10th of April, 2006, the last day of the India Brand Consumer Show organized by Mrinal Events and Expositions at Victoria Park, Meerut, witnessed the dawn of the day with hope, aspiration, pleasure and festivity at the Victoria Park, Meerut, but, as ill-fortune (man made) would have it, as the evening set in, it became the mute spectator to a devastating fire inside the covered premises of the brand show area which extinguished the life spark of sixty-four persons and left more than hundreds as injured; and with the clock ticking, the day turned to be a silent observer of profused flow of human tears, listener of writhing pain and cry, and eventually, marking itself as a dark day of disaster in human history. Some, who were fortunate to escape death, sustained serious injuries, and some minor injuries. The cruelest day of April converted the last day of the festival of Consumer Show to that of a horrifying tragedy for the families of the persons who were charred to death, the victims who despite sustaining serious injuries did not fall prey to the claw of fatality, and the others, slightly fortunate, who had got away with minor injuries bearing the mental trauma. The dance of death, as it appears, reigned supreme and the cruel demon of injury caused serious injuries as well as minor injuries. The assembly of pleasure paled into total despair and before the people could understand the gravity of the tragedy, it was over, leaving the legal representatives who have lost their parents, or the parents who have forever been deprived of seeing their children, or the wives who had become widows within fraction of a minute, blaming and cursing the officials of the State Government. The contemporaneous history records it as "Great Meerut Fire Tragedy.

(2.) After the tragedy paraded at the Victoria Park a First Information Report was lodged against the accused persons under Sections 304A, 337, 338 and 427 of Indian Penal Code. The State Government, regard being had to the magnitude of the tragedy, vide notification No. 2155/p/Chh.p-3-2006- 12(51)p/2006 dated 2.6.2006, appointed Justice O.P. Garg, a former Judge of Allahabad High Court, as one man Commission under the Commissions of Enquiry Act, 1952 (for short "the Act"). The Commission was required to submit the report in respect of four issues, namely: -

(3.) Almost at the time the Commission was appointed, the present writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution was filed seeking the following reliefs: -