Gujarat High Court: A.Y. Kogje, J., allowed and disposed of an appeal challenging the order passed by the Joint Secretary, Home Department in Arms Appeal confirmed by District Magistrate, Surendranagar and Additional District Magistrate, Surendranagar pertaining to the renewal of firearm licence, which came to be rejected.
The counsel for the petitioner, A.B. Gateshaniya, had submitted that the petitioner was an agriculturist and also a political worker holding the post of President of Taluka Panchayat and therefore looking at threat perception firearm licence was granted to the petitioner. It was further submitted that a show-cause notice came to be issued to the petitioner in 2013 asking as to why his firearm licence should not be cancelled after which without taking into consideration his submissions/ objections, his firearm licence came to be cancelled by order by the Additional District Magistrate, Surendranagar. The petitioner happened to file numerous appeals which all came to be rejected. The counsel further submitted that rejection of renewal application of the firearm license was based on irrelevant consideration as the application came to be rejected on the ground that there were number of offences registered against the petitioner.
The Court while disposing of the petition allowed the appeal and stated that authorities have not taken into consideration the fact that in some cases, the petitioner has been acquitted and in some cases, compromise has been arrived at, being a leading political leader in the area and as he has many political rivals, false complaints are also filed against the petitioner and from the date of issuance of firearm licence, the petitioner has never used that firearm thus the order passed by the authorities is set aside. [Bharatsinh Pratapsinh Parmar v. State of Gujarat, 2020 SCC OnLine Guj 149, decided on 06-02-2020]
