Bail plea of seven accused in Kamala Mills fire rejected

Mumbai: A sessions court on Wednesday rejected the bail applications filed by seven accused in the Kamala Mills fire case in which 14 people had lost their lives due to suffocation last year on December 29. However, the court allowed the bail pleas filed by Kevin Bawa and Lisbon Lopez, the two managers of the rooftop pub, 1Above.

According to the judge, prima facie there seems to be no intention (of causing death of persons) but knowledge seems to be there that the place was in such a condition that any untoward incident could result in deaths.

The judge also said that the prosecution has expressed its apprehension that if released on bail, the accused could tamper with evidence and witnesses and hence bail could not be granted to them. Special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty, on behalf of the state government, and advocate Lakshmi Raman, as an intervener, on behalf of the families of deceased, had opposed the bail applications.

The court on Wednesday rejected bail applications filed by Yug Pathak, Ravi Bhandari, Ramesh Gowani, Kripesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi, Abhijeet Mankar and Rajendra Patil

Judge S. V. Yarlagadda while rejecting bail applications observed that the court could not go into the arguments made by the applicants because those arguments are related to whether a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder is made out or not and the court cannot go into these aspects at this stage.