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Bengaluru stadium stampede: Karnataka HC dismisses event management firm DNA’s plea against Justice D’Cunha report

The event management company, DNA Entertainment, had raised questions regarding alleged procedural issues in the Justice Michael D’Cunha report on the Bengaluru cricket stadium stampede.

2 min readBengaluruNov 22, 2025 11:40 AM IST

The order was passed by a division bench of Justices D K Singh and Tara Vitasta Ganju.

The Karnataka High Court on Friday dismissed a petition by event management company DNA Entertainment seeking to quash the judicial report by retired Justice Michael D’Cunha on the stampede at Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium that claimed 11 lives in June.

The order was passed by a division bench of Justices D K Singh and Tara Vitasta Ganju.

The report had recommended legal action against DNA, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA), and police officers over the stampede, amongst many other findings and recommendations.

DNA had raised questions regarding alleged procedural issues in the report, stating that they had still not received a full copy of the report itself. The company’s counsel, Senior Advocate B K Sampath, had also raised the issue of the report not being available to DNA while parts of it, including names of personnel, were being circulated in the media. He submitted before the court, “Panel holds so and so responsible for stampede. How do they (media) know about it? Against the names also….they are all named.” He added that this had resulted in a continuous loss of reputation.

The court also recorded DNA’s argument that during the proceedings of the single judge commission, they had not received the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against them or to follow up with their own statements after the depositions by the witnesses.

Early on in the proceedings, the counsel had also made submissions regarding responsibility for the stampede, stating, “It so happened that the function at the Vidhana Soudha drew a lot of crowds… at the behest of government officials and politicians, I would not want to name them, the entire audience were asked to go to the stadium where the team was being facilitated.”

DNA had also argued that, as per media accounts, if the report was only ready by the 11th of July, that would mean that the Commission had exceeded the one-month deadline. It also argued that the Commission did not have the power to recommend legal action against parties as such but only to point out responsibilities and lapses.