Mumbai: On Thursday, the Delhi high court denied Sushil Ansal's request to stay the airing of Netflix's original Trial by Fire, which is based on the Uphaar cinema tragedy that occurred in New Delhi in 1997 and is documented in the book "Trial By Fire: The Tragic Tale" of the Uphaar fire tragedy, which was published in 2016.

Ansal, who was found guilty of tampering with evidence in the Uphaar tragedy case, claims that the book on which the performance is based is full of untrue and defamatory claims. He had also highlighted that the web series' airing would have a negative impact on the resolution of the revision petitions that are currently before the courts.

The court order said, "A series which is based on the book would necessarily result in infringing the right of privacy guaranteed to the plaintiff quite apart from causing irreparable harm to his reputation,"

The defendants in this case, the producers, argued that the series is fiction influenced by the book and that the plaintiff's trial and conviction was a reality that had been widely covered in numerous newspapers throughout the criminal processes. The court agreed, finding that information and reporting on the event have been in circulation for the past 26 years.

"Prior to the institution of the present proceedings, the plaintiff neither alleged nor asserted that his right to a fair trial was or had been prejudiced," the order stated.

While the work on which the web series is based has been penned by parents who had lost teenage children in the incident, there was a need to strike a balance between the aspects of freedom of speech and expression, the dissemination of information amongst the public at large on the one hand and the injury likely to be caused to the individual, the court order added.

The photo is captured by Arnav Kashyap photography.