The Justice Somayajulu Commission, constituted to inquire into the stampede on the inaugural day of the Godavari Pushkaram-2015, has postponed its hearing to January 29. The one-man commission, constituted on September 9, 2015, was given six months’ time to submit its report from the date of assuming charge. Justice Somayajulu assumed charge on September 29, 2015 and was given four extensions till now.
On Friday, government counsel Ch. Prabhakara Rao was directed to produce the entire documents with him in connection with the incident, including post-mortem report of the people who died, wound report of the victims who sustained injuries, investigation reports of the different agencies and other papers.
Counsel for government filed all the documents as per the directions of the Commission. Justice Somayajulu then asked the senior advocate and AP Bar Council member Muppalla Subbarao, appearing on behalf of the victims, to submit memos by Saturday on which he wanted clarification from the government.
Mr. Subbarao told the Commission that video footage submitted by the government was having cuts and was incomplete and sought production of the video taken by Information and Public Relations department. He also sought submission of crowd management list submitted by the Collector and budgetary allocation for bandobast, crowd management and other amenities at ghats.
“We are going to file memos as per the directions of the Commission by Saturday including those documents left over by the district administration,” Mr. Subbarao said.
