Supreme Court. Telegraph file picture

Ranchi, Oct. 15: Former Tata Steel joint managing director and Tata Sons director J.J. Irani has got a respite from the Supreme Court in an 18-year-old fire case in Jamshedpur where 60 persons were killed and 113 injured.

The apex court, in an order on Friday, stayed all the criminal proceedings before the chief judicial magistrate (CJM). A bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat also issued notices to the state government on Irani’s plea.

Irani and other senior officers of the company had challenged the Jharkhand High Court order that allowed three criminal revisions filed by the state government and remitted the case back to the CJM in July to proceed in accordance with law. Senior counsel F.S. Nariman pleaded that the state government has prolonged the issue and the magistrate had dismissed the three complaints filed by the state on the ground that they were barred by limitation under the Factories Act, 1948.

The high court, in its order, observed that the provision of limitation (i.e. filing the case within 90 days) had nothing to do with the fire incident. So, the CJM should resume hearing the cases. Senior standing counsel of the state government R.N. Sahay argued that the limitation period of six months is not to be accounted since the incident happened.

“Rather, it was to be counted after the offence came to the knowledge of the state government. And the knowledge of the offence could not have come before holding an inquiry,” he argued.

The cases were filed soon after the inquiry report by the chief inspector of factories came, he stated, adding the probe panel had said that the fire was due to lack of preventive measures on the factory premises. Tata Steel, on the other hand, had challenged the state government’s cases on three grounds. First, the provisions of the Factories Act, 1948, do not allow the filing of a complaint beyond 90 days of the incident.

Second, the incident did not occur in the factory as such where the manufacturing was going on. Third, it was a mere accident and not an act of negligence on the part of the Tata Steel management, senior counsel Vijay Pratap Singh argued.

The case, in a nutshell, was that the fire broke out in a pandal on March 3, 1989, where company officials had assembled along with their families to celebrate Founder’s day.