Whether the accused were negligent and if so, whether the negligence was gross:

Supreme Court of India
Sushil Ansal vs State Thr.Cbi on 5 March, 2014
Author: .....J.
Bench: T.S. Thakur, Gyan Sudha Misra
 REPORTABLE
 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
 CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICITION
 CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.597 OF 2010
Sushil Ansal Appellant
 Versus
State Through CBI Respondent
(With Crl. Appeals No.598/2010, 599/2010, 600-602/2010, 604/2010, 605-
616/2010 and 617-627/2010)
(viii) Whether the accused were negligent and if so, whether the negligence was gross:
120. The question then is whether the negligence of Ansal brothers-the occupiers of the cinema was
so gross so as to be culpable under Section 304A of the IPC. Our answer to that question is in the
affirmative. The reasons are not far to seek. In the first place the degree of care expected from an
occupier of a place which is frequented everyday by hundreds and if not thousands is very high in
comparison to any other place that is less frequented or more sparingly used for public functions .
The higher the number of visitors to a place and the greater the frequency of such visits, the higher
would be the degree of care required to be observed for their safety. The duty is continuing which
starts with every exhibition of cinematograph and continues till the patrons safely exit from the
cinema complex. That the patrons are admitted to the cinema for a price, makes them contractual
invitees or visitors qua whom the duty to care is even otherwise higher than others. The need for
high degree of care for the safety of the visitors to such public places offering entertainment is
evident from the fact that the Parliament has enacted the Cinematograph Act and the Rules, which
cast specific obligations upon the owners/occupiers/licensees with a view to ensuring the safety of
those frequenting such places. The annual inspections and the requirements of No Objection
Certificates to be obtained from authorities concerned is yet another indicator of how important the
law considers the safety of the patrons to be. Any question as to the nature and the extent of breach
must therefore be seen in the backdrop of the above duties and obligations that arise both under the
common law and the statutory provisions alike. Judged in the above backdrop it is evident that the
Sushil Ansal vs State Thr.Cbi on 5 March, 2014
Indian Kanoon - http://indiankanoon.org/doc/9513811/ 55
occupiers in the present case had showed scant regard both for the letter of law as also their duty
under the common law to care for the safety of their patrons. The occupiers not only committed
deviations from the sanctioned building plan that heightened the dangers to the safety of the visitors
but continued to operate the cinema in contemptuous disregard for the requirements of law in the
process exposing the patrons to a high degree of risk to their lives which some of them eventually
lost in the incident in question. Far from taking any additional care towards safety of the visitors to
the cinema the occupiers asked for permission to place additional seats that further compromised
the safety requirements and raised the level of risks to the patrons. The history of litigation between
the occupiers on the one hand and the Government on the other regarding the removal of the
additional seats permitted during national emergency and their opposition to the concerns
expressed by the authorities on account of increased fire hazards as also their insistence that the
addition or continuance of the seats would not affect the safety requirements of the patrons clearly
showed that they were more concerned with making a little more money out of the few additional
seats that were added to the cinema in the balcony rather than maintaining the required standards
of safety in discharge of the common law duty but also under the provisions of the DCR 1953.