Bengaluru stampede: Karnataka High Court declares arrest of Nikhil Sosale of RCB and others illegal

In a major set back to the State government and the police, the High Court of Karnataka on Thursday declared as “illegal” the arrest of four representatives of Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited (RCSPL) and DNA Networks Pvt. Ltd., who were arrested of June 6 in connection with the June 4 stampede outside M. Chinnaswamy stadium in the city during the celebration of RCB’s victory in IPL-2025 tournament.

Also, the Court directed immediate release of the arrested persons without any delay while granting them interim bail.

Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar passed the interim order while allowing the petitions filed by Nikhil Sosale, Head (Marketing and Revenue), RCSPL; Sunil Mathew, Director, and Kiran Kumar, Event Manager of DNA; and Shamant N.P. Mavinakere, a freelancer service provider for DNA. While RCSPL is the owner of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) cricket team and DNA is the event management firm for the RCSPL.

Multiple flaws

The Court found the action of arresting them illegal for multipole reasons while also declaring that “it was impermissible for the police to cause the arrest of the petitioners pursuant to directions issued by the Chief Minister.”

The State government and the police “do not specifically deny” the specific contention of the petitioners that they were arrested on the orders of the Chief Minister as the there is only “a vague and evasive denial” on this contention in the write statement filed by the government, the Court noted. The Court said that the arrest is prima facie illegal as the police did not place any material to show petitioners’ involvement or commission of offence.

Also, the Court said that there is no material whatsoever to show proximate cause or live nexus between the petitioners to establish their culpability for the commission of the offences, prior to their arrest as their mere relation as employees/directors /officials of RCB/DNA could not have been made the basis by the police to arrest them.

“A perusal of the material on record would indicate that at the time of causing arrest of the petitioners the investigating officer has not furnished the required checklist/mandatory documents such as arrest intimation, memorandum of arrest, grounds of arrest, inspection memo in accordance with the guidelines mandated in Arnesh Kumar’s case supra and DK Basu’s case supra...” Justice Kumar observed.

The arrest of Nikhil was made without outlining or detailing his role, involvement and participation in the event as the police described him as vice-president and director of RCB when he is only a head of marketing and revenue of RCSPL, the Court pointed out.

The Court also held that the sleuths of Central Crime Branch (CCB), who had arrested the petitioners during the wee hours of June 6, had no jurisdiction to arrest them as the State government, with “immediate effect” from 12 noon on June 5 had transferred the probe to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Meanwhile, the petitioners were directed not to directly or indirectly threaten or tamper with the prosecution witnesses or hamper the investigation; to co-operate with the investigation and enquiries by the commission and the sub-divisional magistrate; to execute a personal bond for a sum of ₹1 lakh each with two sureties each for the like sum to the satisfaction of the trial court, and to deposit their passports before the trial court within a period of two weeks from the date of their release, and not to leave its jurisdiction without the prior permission of the High Court.

Click here to read article