A Delhi court on Monday sentenced real estate barons Gopal and Sushil Ansal for tampering with evidence related to the 1997 Uphaar Cinema fire that left 59 people dead.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma also fined them ₹2.25 crore each while directing that they be taken into custody.

“I think it is very hard to reach out to this decision given the complexities involved. After some thinking over some nights and nights, I have come to this conclusion that they deserve punishment,” Sharma said while pronouncing the order.

On October 8, the court convicted the Ansal brothers for tampering with evidence.

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The court also held two of their employees, PP Batra and Anoop Singh, and former court staffer Dinesh Chand Sharma guilty. The Ansal brothers along with Dinesh Sharma, Batra, Har Swaroop Panwar, Singh, and Dharamvir Malhotra were booked in the tempering case. Panwar and Malhotra died during the course of the trial.

The court earlier framed charges against seven accused of abetment of offence, causing disappearance of evidence, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, and criminal conspiracy.

In the main fire case, the Ansals were convicted and sentenced to two years in jail by the Supreme Court in 2015.

The apex court released them as they had already served the jail term on the condition that pay ₹30 crore fine each to be used for building a trauma centre in the national capital.

On October 8, while convicting the accused in the tampering case, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court said, “The manner in which they subjected the process of law to desecration is no less defiling the justice administration system.”

It held that their “high handedness” for “securing benefit in the trial sans documents by any means shows the scant regard which they have for the justice delivery system”.

“The brazen attitude of the accused is reflective from their conduct as, after the destruction of evidence, they vehemently opposed the prosecution plea for adducing secondary evidence,” the court said.

A fire broke out at the Uphaar Cinema in Green Park during the screening of Hindi film Border on June 13, 1997.