A Delhi court on Thursday denied anticipatory bail to an advocate accused in the case related to the collapse of a paying-guest (PG) building in Satya Niketan that killed seven people.
Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Partap Singh Laler of Patiala House Courts rejected the plea filed by Shubham Tyagi, one of the PG operators.
The Court said that Tyagi had suppressed a rent agreement showing him as a lessee of the building.
The Court said that a person renting out floors of a building as a paying-guest house for students assumes a responsibility to be alive to the condition of that building.
“If construction is going on and occupants object, the least that is expected is a complaint to the owner and, if the owner is unresponsive, to the concerned authorities — not a threat to make the occupants vacate,” the Court said.
The building at Satya Niketan Market, which was being run as a hostel under the name "Hostel Daze," collapsed on September 6, killing five students and two labourers.
Tyagi, enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD), claimed he merely invested money in the PG business run by his friend Sudhanshu Lovenish Kumar and had no ownership, control or knowledge of the building's structural condition. He placed the rent agreement before the Court showing Sudhanshu Lovenish Kumar as lessee.
However, the prosecution produced a second rent agreement showing Tyagi himself as lessee of the second and third floors of the same building on near-identical terms.
After considering the case, the court noted that the two agreements were notarised by the same notary, generated from the same e-stamp account minutes apart, and that Tyagi and Kumar had signed as witnesses on each other's documents.
The Court held this pattern was consistent with a joint venture rather than a unilateral tenancy and that the non-disclosure of Tyagi's own agreement amounted to a breach of the duty of candour expected of anticipatory bail applicants.
Further, the Court also relied on the statement of an injured resident, Nitish Chib, who said both accused collected rent, were informed of construction and iron-cutting work underway in the basement and ground floor and threatened residents with eviction when they objected.
Advocates Ankita Gautam, Abhishek Sharma, Harsh Gautam, Keshav Pratap Singh and Neeraj Kanwar appeared for Shubham Tyagi.
Additional Public Prosecutor Mukul Kumar appeared for the State.
[Read Order]