Uphaar Cinema fire

Common card · No. 280266

The Uphaar Cinema fire was a major fire in Green Park, Delhi. The fire started on Friday, 13 June 1997, at Uphaar Cinema (a theatre) during the three o'clock screening of the movie Border. 59 people were trapped inside and died of asphyxiation (suffocation), while 103 were seriously injured in the resulting stampede. The victims and the families of the deceased later formed The Association of Victims of Uphaar Fire Tragedy (AVUT), which filed the landmark civil compensation case. The suit led to an award of ₹25 crore (equivalent to ₹69 crore or US$7.1 million in 2026) in compensation for the victims' families. The case is now considered a landmark decision in India's civil compensation law. However, on 13 October 2011, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice R Raveendran, inexplicably, nearly halved the sum of compensation awarded to victims by the [Delhi High Court], and slashed punitive damages to be paid by cinema owners, the Ansal brothers, from ₹2.5 crore (equivalent to ₹5.6 crore...

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