The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court has cancelled the bail granted to the owners of the Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub, where a devastating fire claimed 25 lives and left over 50 injured on December 6 last year. Delivering the verdict on an appeal by the Goa government, Justice Dr. Neela Gokhale directed co-owners Saurabh Luthra, Gaurav Luthra, and their partner Ajay Gupta to surrender before the trial court within two weeks, while giving them liberty to move fresh bail applications.
The tragic blaze at the Arpora nightclub exposed glaring safety violations and illegal operations. A 4,420-page chargesheet filed by the Goa Police revealed that the venue had been illegally built on an environmentally sensitive salt pan without basic clearances. Packed far beyond its 150-person capacity, the establishment had no fire NOC, smoke detectors, alarms, or functional firefighting gear. Worse, the primary emergency exit remained locked when cold pyrotechnics used by an event management crew sparked the inferno, trapping patrons inside the combustible structure.
The conduct of the management immediately following the disaster drew sharp condemnation from the prosecution. Investigators found that upon learning of the fire and rising casualties before midnight, Saurabh Luthra booked emergency international tickets via a Delhi agent using his wife’s phone. By 5:30 AM—while firefighters were still pulling bodies from the embers—the Luthra brothers boarded a flight to Phuket, Thailand. Meanwhile, Ajay Gupta fled to Delhi, turned off his phone, used his driver's handset to evade surveillance, and checked into a private hospital before being arrested on December 10. The Luthra brothers were later brought back after authorities suspended their passports and issued Interpol notices.
Despite their attempt to flee, a Merces trial court granted the trio bail in April, observing that the charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder did not attract capital punishment and that prolonged pre-trial custody would amount to punishment. The defence also argued that specific, individualized roles were not established against the owners for the fire outbreak, shifting blame to the pyrotechnics vendor.
Challenging the relief, the state argued before the High Court that releasing the accused undermined public faith in justice, citing the magnitude of the tragedy and their flight to evade the law. The trio is also facing a separate FIR in Mapusa for allegedly forging a health department NOC to obtain liquor licenses.
By setting aside the bail orders across both the main fire case and the forgery investigation, the High Court has reinforced accountability for gross criminal negligence. As the two-week surrender deadline begins, the trial court will hear any fresh applications afresh, while families of the 25 victims continue to await meaningful justice.