Hon’ble Dr. Devendra Kumar Arora, J.—Heard S/Sri A. N. Shukla, Anil Kumar Misra, Suryamani Singh Royekwar, Ravi Shankar Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh, Anand Dubey, Ranjit Sigh, Mahendra Singh Rathore, Gayadeep Singh, Ajay Pratap Singh, Ambrish Tripathi, Manish Pratap Singh, Rajesh Bahadur Singh Rath, Abdul Alim Khan, Karunakar Srivastava, Akhand Pratap Singh, Ram Prakash Singh, Vinod Kumar Singh, Sharad Nandan Ojha, Abhishek Misra, Raghvendra Tewari, Subhash Chandra Pandey, Satendra Nath Rai, Arvind Pratap Singh, Satish Chandra Kashish, Devendra Pratap Singh, Gyanendra Kumar, Anoop Kumar Upadhyaya, Ajeet Kumar Misra, Dilip Kumar Pandey, Sumit Kumar Srivastava, Janardan Singh, Shailendra Kumar Singh, A.A. Khan and Ganga Prasad Misra, learned counsel for the petitioners, the learned Chief Standing Counsel for the State as well as Sri O. P. Srivastava, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri V. K. Dubey, Advocate appearing on behalf of Election Commission of India.

2. Learned Standing Counsel filed single short counter-affidavit separetely with respect to the writ petitions relating to district Gonda, Amethi, Barabanki and Pratapgarh today in Court, the same are taken on record.

3. Learned counsels appearing on behalf of all the petitioners after going through the contents of the short counter-affidavits, submitted that they do not want to file their reply/rejoinder-affidavits and requested this Court to proceed with the hearing.

4. Taking into consideration the request of learned counsel for parties, this Court proceeded to hear the matter finally at the admission stage itself.

5. This bunch of writ petitions involve the same rather more of a legal question having similar facts, therefore, they are being heard and decided together by a common judgment and order.

6. By means of the instant bunch of writ petitions the petitioners are praying for a writ in the nature of certiorari for quashing of the orders, if any, after summoning the same in its original from the opposite parties, whereby the petitioners are required to deposit their fire-arms with the concerned police station or authorized arms dealers (except in Writ Petitions No. 2099 (MS) of 2014, 2100(MS) of 2014, 2098 OMS) of 2014, 2096 (MS) of 2014 and 2095 (MS) of 2014 where the Station House Officer of the concerned police station has passed a written order asking the petitioners to deposit their fire-arms either with the Police Station or with Gun House.

7. Further prayer of the petitioners is that the opposite parties be commanded not to compel the petitioners to deposit their fire-arms with the concerned police station or authorized fire-arms dealers.

8. The common facts of the writ petition, in brief, are that the petitioners are having valid licenses of their fire-arms and the period of renewal of the same has not yet expired. The licenses of the petitioners have also not been suspended nor cancelled. Even no order in writing for depositing the fire-arms at the police station or with fire-arm dealers has been received. Grievance of the petitioners is that in spite of the above facts, the petitioners are being compelled by the police authorities to deposit their fire-arms either with the police station or with the fire-arm dealers.

9. Submission of learned counsel for the petitioners is that the petitioners are law abiding citizens. They are not supports of any political party. Petitioners never misused their fire-arms and they use the same for protection of their lives and properties. Petitioners will become defence-less by depriving them from their fire-arms on the basis of oral directions during the ensuing parliamentary elections.

10. Learned counsel for petitioners further submits that in spite of the fact that there is no specific circular/order/directions for deposit of fire-arms, the police of the concerned police station are compelling the petitioners to deposit their fire-arms in the police station or with the fire-arm dealers.

11. By means of an order