Court No. - 32
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 24212 of 2021 Petitioner :- Anurag Dubey Respondent :- State Of U P And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Vinod Kumar Srivastava,Arjit Srivastava,Usha Srivastava Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Rohit Ranjan Agarwal,J.
Heard Sri V.K. Srivastava, learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for the respondents-State.
This writ petition has been filed assailing the suspension order/notice issued to the petitioner by the Licensing Authority/District Magistrate on 08th September, 2021.
It is contended that without hearing the version of the petitioner and without following the rules, the District Magistrate, Farrukhabad has proceeded to suspend the licence and in case, the reply was not submitted, the licence could not be cancelled. It is further contended that no notice was given to the petitioner when the enquiry was conducted nor after the submission of the enquiry report by the police to the Licensing Authority.
Learned Standing Counsel while opposing the writ petition submitted that the order impugned indicates that it is a suspension order/notice and the petitioner was required to submit reply by 20th September, 2021 but, till date, no reply has been submitted and thus, the licence stood cancelled.
Having heard learned counsel for the parties and from perusal of record, it transpires that the action for keeping the fire arms licence under suspension was passed on police report, wherein it was stated that the petitioner has obtained fire arms licence by forging the documents with regard to name, address and date of birth and he has chequered criminal history to his credit. As the notice under challenge required the petitioner to submit his reply till 20th September, 2021, the same was not filed with the Licensing Authority by the said date.
During course of argument, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the order impugned was received on 17.09.2021, while the writ petition has been filed by 12.09.2021, thus it can safely be said that the claim of the petitioner as regards receiving of the order is totally false as the order impugned is part of the petition which has been filed on 12.09.2021, thus, it can not be accepted that the notice has been received on 17.09.2021.
Further, against the order of cancellation, the petitioner has a remedy of filing of appeal under Section 18 of the Arms Act. A Full Bench of this Court in case of Kailash Nath Vs. State of U.P. and others 1985 A.W.C. 493 held that the Act requires hearing before the passing of the order of cancellation.
In the present case, the suspension order provided an opportunity to the petitioner to file his reply but no such reply was filed within the time mandated as such the order of cancellation come into effect by efflux of time.
Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, this Court finds that the petitioner had neither availed the remedy of filing reply to suspension order/ notice as contemplated by Full Bench of this Court in case of Kailash Nath (Supra) as well as the petitioner had an alternative remedy of filing an appeal before the Divisional Commissioner against the cancellation of fire arms licence under Section 18 of the Act.
In view of the above, writ petition is dismissed. Order Date :- 24.9.2021//SK Goswami