Goa nightclub fire: Court remands ‘co-owner’ Ajay Gupta in 7-day police custody
Panaji (PTI): A court in Goa on Thursday sent Ajay Gupta, who claimed to be a silent partner and investor in the fire-ravaged ‘Birch by Romeo Lane’ nightclub, to police custody for seven days.
Gupta, who was arrested in Delhi on Wednesday, was brought to Goa late in the evening on a transit remand for questioning. He was taken to Anjuna police station for further investigation, an official had said.
He was produced in a court in Mapusa town, 9 km from here, on Thursday. The court remanded him in police custody for seven days.
Rohan Desai, the lawyer representing Gupta, said the Goa police had sought his client’s custody for ten days, but the court granted only seven days.
He said that his client is “completely cooperating with the investigating agency”.
As he was being escorted into a police vehicle, Gupta told reporters that he had no role to play in the deadly accident.
“I don’t know anything. I have no involvement. I was a sleeping partner and had no say in the operations of the club,” he said.
Twenty-five persons, including 20 staff members and five tourists, were killed in the major blaze at the facility in North Goa around midnight on December 6.
Earlier, a Look Out Circular (LOC) had been issued against Gupta.
Five managers and staff members have already been arrested by the Goa Police in connection with the fire that broke out at the nightclub located in Arpora, 25 km from Panaji, around midnight on December 6.
Brothers and co-owners Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, who had left for Phuket in Thailand shortly after the fire incident, have been detained there, according to officials. An Interpol Blue Corner Notice had been issued against them.
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Govt using women's quota pretext to push delimitation: TMC
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New Delhi (PTI): The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday accused the government of using the pretext of early implementation of women's reservation law to "bulldoze" its "real agenda of delimitation".
The TMC said it has always supported women's reservation, but the government cannot "rush" through a bill that will "change the political map" of India based on the 2011 Census.
Parliament is set to meet from April 16 to 18 to consider bills to ensure the implementation of the 33 per cent quota in legislative bodies for women in the 2029 elections. It includes increasing the strength of the Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 seats, with 273 seats reserved for women, and amendments to the Delimitation Act to enable redrawing of constituencies.
In a post on X, TMC Rajya Sabha leader Derek O'Brien shared a video of his earlier speech on the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, 2023 -- also known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam -- and underlined his party’s long-standing advocacy for women’s reservation.
He recalled that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had raised the issue in Parliament as early as July 14, 1998.
Highlighting his party’s track record, O’Brien pointed to the proportion of women candidates fielded and elected by the TMC, stating that the party had given 41 per cent tickets to women in 2014 and currently has one of the highest shares of women MPs.
"Modi govt cannot rush through a bill in a special parliament session bang in the middle of Assembly Polls, a bill that will change the political map of India based on the 2011 census (data which is fifteen years old) in 2026 without greater discussion (sic)," TMC Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha Sagarika Ghose said on X.
"Mr Modi-Shah must be reminded: India is not a single-party democracy. Bulldozing and bullying is against the parliamentary spirit," she said.
In a post on X, TMC leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale accused the government of running a "fake and malicious agenda " claiming it wants “early reservations for women in Parliament”.
"In reality, Modi is using women as an excuse to bulldoze his real agenda of delimitation (which is redrawing boundaries of Lok Sabha & Assembly seats in states to benefit the BJP)," he alleged.
He said that at the time of passage of the bill on women's reservation in 2023, opposition parties had expressed concern that its implementation would be delayed, but the government had ignored them, and said it would happen after the Census in 2026.
"Now, suddenly, just when Bengal and Tamil Nadu are going to elections, Modi decides that delimitation will be done before the 2026 Census. Instead of conducting delimitation based on India’s actual population, the Modi government has come up with its own unknown formula," he said.
He questioned the connection between delimitation and women's reservation, and what is stopping the government from implementing it on the existing 543 seats without delimitation.
The Union Cabinet has cleared draft bills to operationalise the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. The proposed changes include increasing the strength of the Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 seats, with 273 seats reserved for women.
The legislative package is expected to include a Constitution amendment bill to modify provisions of the Act, alongside amendments to the Delimitation Act to enable redrawing of constituencies in line with the expanded House strength.
Another bill is also likely to extend the implementation of the reservation framework to Union Territories with legislatures, including Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry.
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