BENGALURU: The State Government on Thursday justified the suspension of IGP Vikash Kumar Vikash, who was Additional Commissioner of Police, over the June 4 stampede during the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) victory celebrations, before the Karnataka High Court stating that the cops acted as if they were “servants of RCB” and their “actions embarrassed the government”.
The senior counsel representing the State Government made this submission before the division bench of Justice SG Pandit and Justice TM Nadaf during the hearing of the petition filed by the State Government against the order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal which quashed the suspension of Vikash Kumar. The senior counsel submitted that the CEO of RCB sought permission.
“However, the police, starting from the commissioner, started making arrangements for bandobust, forgetting that no permission had been granted. The commissioner failed to pass an order refusing to grant permission, as if they had no power. If they have no power, why did they make bandobast arrangements?” he argued.
Being the authority to inspect the place, the same was not done to check issues such as the availability of parking, law and order problems in the locality, or whether any nuisance would be caused. Police have all the powers under the Karnataka Police Act, but they didn’t do anything, he argued, while pointing out that the CAT, instead of testing the validity of the suspension orders, goes into a fact-finding exercise which it was not authorised to do nor warranted.
‘Made a scapegoat’
Countering it, senior counsel appearing for Vikash Kumar contended that he has been made a scapegoat to blame someone for the unfortunate incident. The government suspended the police officers and ordered magisterial probe, after the court took suo motu cognisance of the stampede.
He argued that top people of the government visited the airport, received the team members, they were felicitated at Vidhana Soudha, and then they were taken to the stadium, while also asking the gathering to reach there, and then this incident occurred. The suspension as a measure of punishment can’t be ordered as was done in this case, as such an act is impermissible in law without conducting a disciplinary enquiry, he argued.
The court adjourned the further hearing to Friday.
Cabinet to discuss report
The Karnataka cabinet on Thursday decided to discuss Justice John Michael D’Cunha Commission’s report on reasons for the stampede at M Chinnaswamy Stadium at its next meeting. Justice D’Cunha, who headed a one-man judicial commission to investigate the reasons for the stampede, submitted his report to CM Siddaramaiah last week. Law Minister HK Patil said, “This report has to be studied in detail. Hence, we decided to place it before the next cabinet meeting.’’