Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Monday (June 23) appointed a senior advocate as an amicus curiae to assist the court in its suo motu cognisance it took on the June 4 stampede incident near M Chinnaswamy stadium claiming 11 lives during the maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) title victory celebration of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
A bench comprising Acting Chief Justice V Kameshwar Rao and Justice CM Joshi appointed senior advocate S Susheela as the amicus curiae and directed that the copy of all relevant documents, including the status report filed by the State in sealed cover, be provided to the amicus curiae.
The court said that it would like assistance of the amicus curiae on the question whether the status report filed by the State in sealed cover should remain in the sealed cover or be made public or at least shared with the parties to the case.
The State of Karnataka has filed two reports and while filing the reports had requested the court to to submit the documents in a sealed cover and the court had allowed it to submit the documents in a sealed cover.
The counsels representing other parties to the case have urged for making the documents submitted by the State of Karnataka public.
The court on Monday also said that it would consider the question regarding enhancement of compensation to the victims of stampede on priority and fixed the matter for further hearing on July 1.
Eleven persons lost their lives and 56 others were injured in the June 4 stampede incident as a large number of people thronged to the Chinnaswamy stadium on June 4 to participate in the RCB team’s IPL victory celebrations.
The High Court, while hearing the matter earlier, observed that there must be an SOP in place when such events take place and had said that the court is taking cognisance of the incident to ascertain the cause of tragedy and how to prevent such tragedies in future.
