The head lifting rule - which he was called for - was basically brought in to a couple of federations to fend off the worst anomalities when it comes to belly benching.
IPF and I think USPF, has this rule.
Coupled with the belly bench rule it's supposed to prevent the whole shirt thing to totally go out of hand.
Whether it's successful or not is another issue.
But for raw bench, this rule isn't really necessary. Neither is the belly bench rule.
My guess from reading the comments on PLwatch, is that the judges were right in calling him on it.
It's just that it's a rule that we wouldn't need if the shirt wouldn't be around.