Hon’ble Dr. Devendra Kumar Arora, J.—Heard Sri G.C.Verma, Advocate assisted by Sri Sanjay Mishra, Advocate for the petitioner and Sri Pankaj Patel, Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State.

2. Feeling aggrieved by the order dated 10.5.2013 passed by the District Magistrate, Sultanpur whereby the application of the petitioner for grant of license of Double Barrel Gun, which was owned by the father of the petitioner during his life time, has been rejected.

3. In short the facts of the case are that the petitioner is a practicing Advocate of this Court and belongs to a reputed Brahmin family of district Sultanpur. The grandfather of the petitioner,namely, Pt Mahatma Prasad Pathak owned a Double Barrel Gun, which was later on transferred to the father of the petitioner, namely, Sri Som Prakash Pathak, who was the District Government Counsel (Civil) in Sultanpur. The father of the petitioner left for heavenly abode on 12.6.2009. Petitioner is the only son of his father and the real sister of the petitioner is married and there is no dispute of succession. Therefore, after the death of his father, the petitioner deposited the gun of his father at Madras Gun House and applied for grant of license vide application dated 30.6.2009.

4. When no action was taken for sufficient long time on the aforesaid application, the petitioner filed a Writ Petition No. 22 (MS) of 2013 before this Court wherein a direction was issued to the concerned authority vide order dated 1.2.2013 to examine the application of the petitioner and decide the same in accordance with law. Thereafter, the application of the petitioner has been rejected by the licensing authority vide impugned order dated 10.5.2013 on the ground that there is no threat of life to the petitioner and the petitioner wants the license just for his status.

5. Learned Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that Section 14 of the Arms Act deals with the ground on which license can be refused and the ground which has been taken in the impugned order is not covered under Section 14 of the Arms Act and as such the impugned order is nonest and shows the arbitrariness of the concerned authority.

6. On the strength of the decisions rendered in Ram Singh Yadav v. State of U.P.; 1993 ALR (23) 523, Ram Prakash Srivastava v. Commissioner Jhansi Division, Jhansi, 2002(20) LCD 414 and Chandraraj Tripathi v. State of U.P. and others; passed in Writ-C No. 65647 of 2013 decided on 10.12.2013, it has been argued that the impugned order being contrary to the provisions of the Arms Act, is not tenable in the eyes of law and is liable to be quashed.

7. In contrast, Sri Pankaj Patel, Additional Chief Standing Counsel submitted that there is no illegality or infirmity in the impugned order and it has rightly been observed that the petitioner wants the fire-arm license just for the prestige sake and there is no threat to life or property of the petitioner. During inquiry, the police authorities have not found any genuine need of the petitioner. It has further been argued that the petitioner has no fundamental right to have fire-arm licence as alleged by him in the writ petition. It is a subjective satisfaction of the Licensing Authority to issue or refuse the grant of licence depending upon the gravity of threat. Therefore, no interference is warranted under Article 226 of the Constitution and the writ petition is liable to be dismissed.

8. Before dealing with the actual controversy involved in the writ petition, it would be apt to refer Section 13 and 14 of the Arms Act, which are relevant for the disposal of the present matter.

13. GRANT OF LICENCES

1. An application for the grant of a licence under Chapter II shall be made to the licensing authority and shall be in such form, contain such particulars and be accompanied by such fee, if any, as may be prescribed.

2. On receipt of an application, the licensing authority shall call for the report of the office in charge of the nearest police station