The rights and liabilities of parties in arms licence applications are governed by statutory provisions contained in the Arms Act, and rejection must be based on the grounds specified in the Act, not arbitrarily by the district authorities.

1. It is a tragedy that even though we live in a democratic society governed by rule of law, there appears to be no rule of law so far as district administration is concerned. The petitioner had applied for grant of an arms licence and had recommendations from various officers and on 25.3.2003 after quite sometime, he learnt that his application was rejected: He, accordingly, filed application for grant of certified copy of the order on 28.2.2004 but still he was not supplied any order or disclosed anything. Thus, he came to this Court.

2. It appears that a counter affidavit had been drawn up and filed in the proceedings by the State. Counter affidavit is not on record nor the same has been served on the petitioner. However, I have perused the counter affidavit, copy of which is available with the State Counsel. The said counter affidavit merely states that as the petitioner had two other arms, his application was rejected. It does not give the date of rejection order, nor does it append the order nor the order is being communicated to the petitioner, nor certified copy made available to the petitioner. Apparently, the district authorities think that it is a big state secret that they are holding unknowing of the fact that these are public matters the disclosure of which is compulsory for them because there are appellate and other remedies available to the person who makes an application. The district authorities cannot be possessive about these matters as the rights and liabilities of parties are governed by the statutory provisions contained in the Arms Act which is a statutory enactment. Grant of arms licence is not grant of any privilege as the statute itself provides the grounds on which it can be rejected. It gives a right to any citizens to apply for the same. It is not a largess which is to be distributed by the district authorities at their whims and caprice. There are no provisions in the Act which says that merely because a person had more than one arm, he cannot be given more licence.

The restriction is that a person cannot have more than three licences which itself shows that a person may have multiple licences upto three.

3. In that view of the matter, I set aside the order whatever may be as disclosed in the counter affidavit and direct the District Magistrate to reconsider the matter expeditiously preferably within a period of one month from the date of production of a copy of this order.

4. This writ application is, accordingly, allowed.