Bengaluru stampede effect: Karnataka draft law proposes jail, Rs 5 lakh fine on event managers

Bengaluru: After 11 people died in the June 4 stampede, the Siddaramaiah administration has drafted a new law for crowd control that proposes imprisonment up to three years for event managers with a maximum penalty of Rs 5 lakh.

The Karnataka Crowd Control (Managing Crowd at Events and Venues of Mass Gathering) Bill was placed before the Cabinet on Thursday.  It will be decided upon in the next Cabinet meeting, Law & Parliamentary Affairs Minister HK Patil said.

According to the Bill, event organisers must apply for permission with the jurisdictional police. The police can allow the event as planned, change the venue, alter the timings or cancel it altogether. 

The Bill will not apply to religious events such as Jatra, Rathotsava, Pallakki Utsava, Teppada Teru and Urus. 

Intentional disobeying, not obtaining prior police permission, conducting an event that results in death or bodily injury and creating disturbance leading to a stampede will be considered as offences by event planners, the Bill states. 

Offences under the law will be non-cognizable, non-bailable and tried by a first-class magistrate.

Under the proposed law, event planners will be required to compensate victims of stampede-like incidents. “In case of the event planner not paying the compensation, the government may collect the amount as arrears of land revenue. The event planner’s property can be auctioned by the government,” the Bill states.

Apart from specific penal provisions for event planners, the government is proposing imprisonment of up to three years and fine of Rs 5,000 for any person who "does not obey the orders of the police, or violates the provisions of this Act".

The government is also proposing punishments to all persons and intermediaries who provide assistance, platform and money to any event that results in death, bodily injury or stampede. The punishment for such "aiding, abetting or assisting" will be a jail term of three years. 

The draft Bill comes in the backdrop of the June 4 tragedy, which saw lakhs of people gathered near Vidhana Soudha and the Chinnaswamy stadium to celebrate the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) winning its maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) trophy. Eleven people died in the stampede. 

The government's role is limited to "awareness, education and training to prohibit death or bodily injury at any event in any place". No officer or authority of the government can be sued "for an act which is done or intended to be done in good faith", the Bill states.