Supreme Court Orders Goa Nightclub Fire Accused to Surrender

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the last bid by three Goa nightclub owners to stay out of custody in a fire that killed 25 people. Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu told Saurabh Luthra, Gaurav Luthra and Ajay Gupta to surrender within two weeks and told the trial court to speed up the framing of charges.

The order leaves standing an 18 August ruling of the Bombay High Court at Goa, which had set aside their bail and rejected a sessions finding that the offence was not as heinous as murder or dacoity. The men still have not been convicted. They do have to walk back into a North Goa court by 14 September.

Two Weeks to Surrender

The petitions were Gaurav Luthra v. State of Goa, SLP (Crl) No. 15665/2026, with connected filings by Saurabh Luthra and Gupta. Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, for the Luthra brothers, told the bench there was no act of theirs that caused the deaths. He said a charge of culpable homicide could not stand on these facts, and that the prosecution, at most, had a negligence case whose jail term under the new criminal code runs to five years.

Dave also said the High Court had leaned on missing bail conditions, periodic attendance before the investigating officer and permission to travel inside India, and that those conditions could be added now. He said the brothers did not want to travel. The bench still refused. Justice Datta said, “Dismissed.”

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, for Gupta, then asked for two weeks to surrender. The court granted that window from Monday and added that the trial should be expedited, in particular the framing of charges. In Indian fire cases, bail often arrives, then a higher court takes it away, while the trial file barely moves. This order tries to break the second half of that loop, not only the first.

The Trial Court Treated 25 Deaths as Less Heinous

Justice Neela Gokhale, sitting at Goa, cancelled the bail on 18 August in a 27-page order in State of Goa v. Saurabh Luthra. The Goa government had come to her after the sessions court let the three men out. She held that the lower court had not applied its mind and had said almost nothing about the scale of the harm.

A plain reading of the impugned order reveals not a word on the enormity of the offence. The gravity of the offence must not be undermined. The Respondent and his partners, prima facie, deliberately ignored all safety norms while operating the restaurant and authorising the conduct of cold-pyro fireworks, knowing fully well the combustible material used in the roof of the restaurant.

Justice Neela Gokhale, Bombay High Court at Goa

She wrote that treating the offence as “not that heinous” showed simplicity. The same sessions court, when it first refused bail, had called the restaurant a hazardous place that put patrons and staff at a foreseeable risk of fire. When it later granted bail, it treated the filing of a charge sheet as a changed circumstance and did not point to new facts inside that file.

Witness statements before her said soundproof glass, fitted on the owners’ instructions, stopped smoke from getting out. Staff had no fire training. There was no fire extinguisher in the restaurant and no emergency exit from the kitchen. “On account of the absence of fire extinguishers and other safety installations, 25 people died,” she wrote. The restaurant was running without licences because the structure itself was unauthorised, so the safety rules that come with a valid licence never attached.

She also said the finding on flight risk was contrary to the record. One of the respondents had fled to Phuket, been caught after a non-bailable warrant, a proclamation and a Blue Corner Notice, and been deported. None of that, she said, appeared in the reasons for bail.

How a Salt-Pan Club Became a Trap

Birch by Romeo Lane stood in Arpora, about 25 km from Panaji, on a salt pan with water on all sides and a narrow way in. The club, opened in 2024 under M/s Being GS Hospitality Arpora LLP, hosted a dance night on 6 December 2025. About 100 people were on the floor when fire started around 11.45 p.m.

Police put the first call at 12.04 a.m. on 7 December. Fire trucks had to stop about 400 m away because the lane was too tight. It took two hours to kill the flames. Rescue work ran into the morning. The 300-square-metre shed went up fast: dried palm leaves on the roof, a thatch that burns, stacks of alcohol, and electrically set pyro guns used during a dance act. An LPG cylinder blast was first blamed, then dropped.

Most of the 25 dead were staff, people who had come from other states to work the kitchen and the floor. Four tourists from one Delhi family also died. About 50 people were hurt. Most of the dead suffocated; three were burned. Bodies were found on a stair to the ground floor after people ran toward the basement and could not get out. The other exit, the charge sheet says, was locked, and the owners knew it.

THE NIGHT THE CLUB BURNED

1. 11.45 p.m., 6 December 2025: Fire starts during the dance night, later tied to indoor pyro on a thatched roof.
2. 12.04 a.m., 7 December 2025: Police log the first emergency call; engines stop about 400 m short of the gate.
3. 1.17 a.m., 7 December 2025: The Luthra brothers book tickets out of Delhi while rescue work is still on.
4. 5.30 a.m., 7 December 2025: They leave on IndiGo flight 6E 1073 to Phuket.

Nightclubs fall in the assembly class of the building code, which wants separate exits placed far apart and treats open flame as a special risk. Goa’s fire service itself hosts the national fire and life safety code that sets those occupancy and exit tests. Birch, on the police file, met almost none of them. The same missing-exit pattern turned up in a Kolkata hotel fire that killed nine.

Forged House Numbers and an Expired Licence

A magisterial inquiry released at the end of December 2025 found the club had been built on a salt pan in a way no current or old land or coastal rule allowed. Village panchayat Arpora-Nagoa had issued a trade licence to the LLP on 16 December 2023 for a bar, restaurant-cum-night club. That paper expired on 31 March 2024 and was not renewed. The panchayat did not seal the place.

The charge sheet says the structure had no house number of its own. The accused used a forged number from a hotel on the next plot to seek a trade licence, an excise licence and a consent to operate. Justice Gokhale recorded the chain in short: the house number was distorted to get a trade licence, which was then used to forge a health no-objection certificate, all to obtain the excise licence. A demolition notice from 2024 was stayed after an appeal.

WHAT THE CLUB DID NOT HAVE

Assembly buildings that hold a crowd are supposed to show occupant load and keep nightclub exit and seating rules that the fire authority can inspect. Birch, the courts have now said twice, was running as if those rules did not exist. Relatives of the dead can still file a civil suit for compensation after death under an 1855 statute, a separate track from the criminal file.

They Booked Phuket While the Club Still Burned

Managers told the Luthra brothers about the fire and the casualties the same night, the charge sheet says. At 1.17 a.m. on 7 December, with crews still working the wreck, the brothers booked seats to Thailand. They flew at 5.30 a.m. A lookout circular followed about a day later. Interpol issued a Blue Corner Notice. Thai police detained them on 11 December at a hotel in Patong, Phuket.

India suspended their passports. They landed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 2.10 p.m. on 16 December, were arrested at the immigration counter, and reached Goa around 11 a.m. the next day under police escort. A Delhi court had already refused them transit anticipatory bail. Gupta, the third partner, was held in Delhi. Saurabh Luthra is 40, Gaurav Luthra 44, Gupta 55. They ran a Delhi nightlife brand; Birch was one outlet of that business, not a one-off shack.

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant pledged ₹5 lakh for families of the dead and ₹50,000 for the injured. The Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund added ₹2 lakh and ₹50,000. North Goa then banned pyro, fireworks and sparklers inside tourist places, a list that includes nightclubs, bars, hotels and beach shacks. Other clubs in the belt were audited and some were shut. None of that, the High Court said, was a reason to treat the Arpora deaths as a light offence.

Bail Came in April and Left in August

Anjuna police filed the fire case. Mapusa police filed a second FIR on forgery of a health NOC used to get the excise licence. Gupta got bail in the forgery case on 7 February 2026 and in the fire case on 23 March. The Luthra brothers got bail in the fire case on 1 April and in the forgery case on 8 April. The sessions court, while letting them out, had said culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and forgery, did not sit with the most heinous crimes such as murder.

It also skipped basic checks. There was no order to report to the investigating officer and no order to seek leave before travelling inside India, after a case in which two of the accused had already left the country. The High Court cancelled five applications, covering both FIRs, gave two weeks to surrender, and left them free to seek fresh bail before the trial court, with a direction that any such plea be decided within two weeks. The Supreme Court did not restore the old bail. It did not need to say more than that.

WHEN THE THREE MEN GOT BAIL

Dave’s pitch in the Supreme Court was that this was negligence, not an act that caused death. Gokhale’s order had already answered that in another key. The cold pyro was allowed, she said, by people who knew the roof would burn. The locked exit and the missing kit then turned a fire into 25 deaths. That is the gap the sessions court left on the page, and the gap two higher courts have now refused to reopen at the bail stage.

Thirteen Accused Still Await Charges

On 26 February 2026, Anjuna police filed a 4,150-page charge sheet before the Mapusa magistrate, naming 13 people and listing 305 witnesses. Inspector Suraj Gawas said the file followed a full probe. A second charge sheet, 2,306 pages with 50 witnesses and five accused, went in on 2 July on the forged health NOC. Justice Gokhale had already warned that a file of more than 4,000 pages, with outstation witnesses, would not finish soon if left to the usual list.

The fire file names the three LLP partners, club managers Rajiv Modak, Priyanshu Thakur, Rajveer Singhania, Vivek Singh and Bijay Kumar Singh, property owner Surinder Kumar Khosla, then sarpanch Roshan Redkar, then panchayat secretary Raghuvir Bagkar, and two men from the event firm K-Dance Events. Bharat Singh Kohli, a manager who said he did not run the club day to day, was left off the accused list.

CHARGES ON THE FIRE FILE

• Section 105: Culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
• Section 125: Acts so rash or negligent as to endanger life or safety.
• Section 287: Negligent handling of fire and combustible matter.
• Sections 336 and 338: Forgery, and using a forged document as genuine.
• Sections 61, 238, 241, 3(7): Conspiracy, destruction of evidence and records, and acts of omission.

The Supreme Court has now told that trial court to frame charges without the usual crawl. The three partners still have until 14 September to surrender. They may ask for bail again. They will do it as undertrials in a case that two constitutional courts have already refused to treat as a routine accident. The 25 people who died in Arpora do not get a verdict from Monday’s order. They get a court that has been told, in writing, to stop treating the file as light.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of court orders and police papers in a pending criminal case. It is not legal advice and it is not a finding of guilt against any accused person, all of whom remain entitled to a full trial. Readers who need advice on bail, charges, or a claim for damages should consult a qualified criminal or civil lawyer in the relevant court. Figures, dates, and case status are those in the public record as of 2 September 2026 and may change as the trial court acts.