Bengaluru stampede: Police officers acted as 'servants of RCB', says Karnataka govt before HC

Bengaluru: The state government on Thursday submitted before the Karnataka High Court that the suspended IPS officer Vikash Kumar Vikas and also the other officers had gone ahead with bandobast arrangements while they had not granted permission for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) cricket team’s victory celebrations on June 4, 2025. 

Special counsel PS Rajagopal, representing the state government, said that the police acted as the servants of the RCB, forgetting that they had not permitted the victory celebrations.

The submissions were made before a division bench headed by Justice SG Pandit in the petition filed by the state government challenging the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Bengaluru bench order setting aside IPS officer Vikash Kumar Vikash's suspension in relation to the stampede outside the M Chinnaswamy stadium on June 4, 2025.

Rajagopal said that the CAT bench has exceeded its authority by conducting an unnecessary fact-finding mission.

He said the decision taken by the police to make arrangements, despite no decision taken on the request sent by the RCB, was called for suspension on accountability.

He said that while the RCB had sought permission, the police commissioner failed to issue a formal rejection.

The deployment of police forces ordered by Vikash, who was Additional Commissioner of Police (West), proved insufficient for the event, the advocate said.

On the other hand, senior advocate Dhyan Chinnappa, appearing for Vikash Kumar, said that the state government had to blame someone and the officer had been a scapegoat.

He said that the suspension order was in violation of the rules for the all-India service employees. He said that while top government functionaries had received the RCB team at the HAL airport and players were felicitated at the steps of Vidhana Soudha, the unfortunate stampede incident happened within a span of 5-10 minutes. The advocate further said that while the suspension order used the word ‘accountability’ and not ‘dereliction of duty’.

On July 1, the CAT bench had set aside the suspension, saying that the order was passed in a mechanical manner, not based on convincing materials and without any sufficient material or grounds.

Allowing the application filed by Vikash Kumar, the bench also said that it expected the state government to extend the similar benefit (revoking of the suspension) to the other police officers suspended; B Dayananda, (Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru City), Shekar H Tekkannavar (Deputy Commissioner of Police, Central Division), C Balakrishna (Assistant Commissioner of Police, Cubbon Park), and A K Girish (Police Inspector, Cubbon Park Police Station).