The State government on Tuesday gave an undertaking to the High Court of Karnataka that it would neither publish nor circulate the John Michael Cunha Commission report on the stampede outside M. Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru on June 4.
State Advocate-General gave this assurance before a Division Bench, comprising Justice Jayant Banerji and Justice Umesh M. Adiga, during the hearing on a petition filed by DNA Entertainment Networks Pvt. Ltd., the event management partner of Royal Challengers Sports Pvt. Ltd., which owns Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
DNA had filed the petition complaining that the commission violated the provisions of the Commissions of Inquiry Act (CoI Act), 1952, in the procedure adopted in conducting the inquiry, while contending that the commission had not given an opportunity to DNA to cross-examine witnesses.
While it has been alleged in the petition that the government had leaked the commission’s report to the media, the A-G told the court the government had nothing to do with reports in the media.
In response to A-G Shashi Kiran Shetty’s undertaking, senior advocate B.K. Sampath Kumar, appearing for DNA, told the Bench that the government, while refusing to give a copy of the commission’s report to DNA, had responded in writing that the report of the commission was already given to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which is probing the stampede incident based on three First information Reports registered on June 5.
