New Delhi, Sep 3 - The Delhi High Court Thursday dismissed the plea of the Ansal brothers challenging a trial court order summoning them for alleged tampering with evidence related to the 1999 Uphaar cinema fire tragedy.

Giving a clear message that tampering with evidence would lead to criminal prosecution, the court also slapped a fine of Rs.25,000 on theatre owners Sushil and Gopal Ansal, who were sentenced to two years jail term by the trial court.

In December last year, the high court modified the trial court order and reduced their sentence from two to one year jail term.

Justice S. Muralidhar Thursday dismissed the plea of the Ansal brothers challenging the order of the trial court that had asked them to appear in a case of alleged tampering with evidence. He said: 'This court is unable to therefore accept the submission that the investigation was either unfair or that there was no material on which the trial court could have taken cognizance and summoned the petitioners.'

'It cannot be said that there is not even a prima facie case made out against any of the accused and that because none of the accused had anything to gain by documents going missing or being tampered, they should be discharged,' the court ruled.

Earlier, Additional Sessions Judge Mamta Sehgal on Jan 31, 2003, had ordered an inquiry after some documents related to the Uphaar case went missing from the court record room.

After the inquiry, one court staff was dismissed by the judge for tampering with the court records on June 25, 2004.