Chinnaswamy Stampede: Karnataka HC Stays Criminal Proceedings Against RCB
On June 4, a tragic stampede occurred outside Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium during a public celebration of RCB’s first IPL trophy. Nearly 11 people succumbed to the incident;
The Karnataka High Court yesterday issued an interim order directing the State police not to file the final report or chargesheet without the Court’s prior permission in connection with the criminal cases against Royal Challengers Sports Limited (RCSL, owners of RCB) and event management company DNA Entertainment, arising from the Chinnaswamy Stadium stampede.
A bench led by Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar, while hearing the batch of petitions, ordered: “The interim order passed earlier in all the petitions will continue until the next date of hearing."
During the course of proceedings, RCB’s counsel told the Court that the company had been fully cooperating with the investigation.
On the other hand, the State police contended that at least one month was required to complete the investigation.
Accordingly, the Court relisted the matter for August 5 while extending the interim order granted earlier.
Earlier, RCB had approached the High Court seeking to quash the criminal proceedings initiated against it in connection with the stampede at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, which resulted in 11 fatalities. The franchise maintained that it had been wrongly implicated in the matter.
The event management company, meanwhile, attributed the incident to lapses in crowd control by the police.
Importantly, the High Court had, on June 17, passed an interim order directing the police not to take any coercive action against the petitioners, including RCB and event partner DNA Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.