BENGALURU: The State Government on Tuesday sought time till Thursday to file the answers to the nine questions posed by the Karnataka High Court while taking suo motu cognisance of the death of 11 people and injuries to over 50 people in a stampede during RCB victory celebrations at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in the city on June 4.
When the matter was taken up for hearing by the division bench of acting Chief Justice V Kameswar Rao and Justice CM Joshi on Tuesday, Advocate General (AG) K Shashikiran Shetty submitted that he has not filed the reply but intends to file it in a sealed cover, stating that whatever is said here is being used by the accused in their bail petitions.
He pointed out that the submission made on June 5 that the investigation was transferred to CID has been used by the accused to challenge the legality of their arrest.
The AG said that he will file the reply but does not want to put it in open court. “Let the report from an independent inquiry come and it should not be that we are biased. It is a matter of only one month,” the AG pleaded, noting that a judicial commission is set up and a month is given to furnish the report.
The court permitted the AG to file the reply in a sealed cover on or before Thursday and said that the Registrar General should ensure that the reply is kept in safe custody, before adjourning the hearing to June 12.
Court reserves call on plea by deceased’s kin
Meanwhile, a senior counsel submitted that they have filed an application on behalf of the family members of a deceased to intervene in the matter. The court said that let the reply from the State come and it will look into the impleading applications, stating that it is not saying anything right now.
On June 5, acting swiftly over the serious concerns of citizens about the stampede, the court took cognisance of the incident by registering the suo motu public interest litigation. The court preferred to ascertain at first instance the reasons which led to the tragedy, whether the tragedy could have been prevented and what remedial measures need to be taken to prevent such tragedies in future.
The court had issued notice to the State Government and directed it to submit the answer to nine questions.
Why senior cops, CM’s political secretary not held?
Meanwhile, the senior counsel of the arrested persons raised a question before Justice SR Krishna Kumar, who was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the registration of FIRs over stampede, that why the senior police officers, who were prima facie found guilty of dereliction of their duties and placed under suspension, and chief minister’s political secretary, who was removed from the post, were not arrested by the police?
The question was raised by senior advocate representing arrested persons, including Nikhil Sosale, Marketing and Revenue Head of Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited, Sunil Mathew, Director, and Kiran Kumar, Event Manager of DNA Networks Private Limited, and Shamant N P Mavinakere, a freelancer with DNA. Pointing out that on what basis these persons were arrested without providing them any documents as per law, the senior counsel questioned why the erring officials were not arrested. Meanwhile, the AG sought time till Thursday to reply to the query of the court that whether the chief minister had made a statement to the media that he had ordered the arrest of officials of RCB and others.