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Judgment
Petitioners are licensees of fire arms. According to them, they have deposited the fire arms as per Exts.P2 and P2(a) on the basis of the direction issued by the Station House Officer.
The petitioners submit that they have not received any notice from the District Magistrate/the licensing authority.
Persons similarly situated like the petitioners had already approached this Court in W.P.(C) No.3682 of 2021 and was disposed of by judgment dated 17.02.2021 with a direction to the respondents that such directions to deposit the licensed arms shall not be issued and the Circular issued by the Election Commission on 01.09.2009 has to be followed and that it is for the licensing authority to issue notice to the licensee, in the event of a finding arrived at by the Screening Committee to be constituted in accordance with the provisions contained in clause 3.11 of the said Circular, directing the licensee to deposit the fire arm. Seeing that the directions to deposit the licensed fire arms were issued to petitioners without any notice issued to them by the licensing authority and that not even a Screening Committee was constituted in accordance with clause 3.11 of the Circular dated 01.09.2009 issued by the Election Commission of India, this Court directed the respective Station House Officers to release the fire arms deposited with them.
Seeing that such instances are recurring in even in the districts from which Writ Petitions were already filed, and judgment was rendered, the learned Government Pleader was directed to get instruction from the State Police Chief and the Commissioner for Land Revenue, as to why the Police officers are collecting the licensed arms, despite the directions in a series of judgments of this Court in Saji Kuriachan v. District Collector, Ernakulam [2011 (1) KLT 484], Binesh G. Vadath v. District Collector [2011 (1) KHC 214], Joseph v. District Collector [2019 (1) KLT 1034], etc.
The learned Government Pleader submits that the State Police Chief has thereupon issued letter dated 15.03.2021 directing all the District Police Chief across the State to instruct the respective officers under them to desist from requiring deposit of fire arms and to strictly abide by the Circular issued on 01.09.2009 of the Election Commission of India.
In the light of the aforesaid directions issued by the State Police Chief, this Writ Petition is disposed of. The petitioners, who have already deposited their firearms with the respective Police stations or the armories, would be free to get those fire arms released and the respective Station House Officers shall see that the same is released to the petitioners, within a period of three days from the date of receipt of a copy of the judgment.