Hon’ble Alok Singh, J. (Oral)

1. Undisputedly, petitioner has moved application seeking arms licence on 30.08.2012 before the District Magistrate Udham Singh Nagar; since learned District Magistrate did not pass any order on the application of the petitioner seeking arms licence, petitioner has approached this Court by way of filing Writ Petition 173 of 2015 (M/S), Mohd. Miraj Vs. State of Uttarakhand and others; when writ petition was taken up for hearing on 21.01.2015, Mr. S.S. Chauhan, learned Deputy Advocate General, appearing for the State / respondents, made statement before this Court that if application dated 20.08.2012 has not been disposed of as yet, decision thereon shall be taken by the District Magistrate, Udham Singh Nagar in accordance with law preferably within four weeks from today; Writ Petition No. 173 of 2015 was disposed of vide order dated 21.01.2015 in the light of the statement made by Mr. S.S. Chauhan, learned Deputy Advocate General; learned District Magistrate, Udham Singh Nagar, thereafter, passed order dated 07.02.2015 saying all the applications seeking arms licence filed on or before 31.12.2012 are rejected; however, applicants may move fresh applications if they still require arms licence because of their life threat; feeling aggrieved, petitioner has filed present writ petition.

2. I have heard Mr. Pradeep Chamiyal, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. S.S. Chauhan, learned Deputy Advocate General for the State.

3. Allahabad High Court in the case of Ganesh Chandra Bhatt Vs. District Magistrate, Almora and others reported in AIR 1993 Allahabd 291, in paragraph Nos. 63, 64, 69 and 84 has held as under:-

63. Very often arms licence are refused or cancelled or suspended on arbitrary or untenable grounds. For example, sometimes an arm licence is refused on the ground that there are already some arms licences in the village and hence it would not be expedient to grant any more licences to people of of that village. This is wholly arbitrary and illegal, since existence of some licences in the village can hardly be reasonable ground to deny one a licence. In fact, it would amount to creating a monopoly in favour of existing licensees.

64 Similarly, sometimes arms licences are suspended/cancelled on the ground of involvement in a petty crime like Section 323, 324 or 325 I. P. C. or proceeding under Section 107/117 or Section 145, Cr. P. C. This again is not a valid ground for impounding/cancelling or refusing to grant an arms licence. It is only where one is accused of a heinous crime or is a hardened criminal that such action can be taken.

69. Section 14(1)(b)(i)(3) states that an application for an arms licence can be refused if the licensing authority has reason to believe that the applicant is unfit for a licence. How the word ‘unfit’ is vague and hence it calls for judicial interpretation.

84. I am further of the opinion that whenever an application for a licence for a non-prohibited arm is made and it is not disposed off within 3 months, it will be deemed to have been allowed on the expiry of 3 months. It is necessary to make this direction because the experience of this Court is that often directions are given by it to dispose off an application within a specified period yet the application is not disposed off and then either a contempt petition on another writ petition has to be filed, causing further delay, expense and harrassment to the applicant. No doubt there is no provision in the Arms Act or Rules stating that if the application is not disposed off within a specified period it will be deemed to be allowed, but this does not mean that the licensing authority can s;t tight over the matter for long periods.

4. I am in full agreement with the view expressed by the Allahabad High Court in the case Ganesh Chandra Bhatt (Supra).

5. Sections 13, 14, 15 and 17 of the Arms Act, 1959 are being reproduced hereunder :-

“13. Grant of licences. (1) An application for the