- (1.) THIS petition has been placed before this Bench by the order dated 29-3-2007 of Hon'ble the Chief Justice.
(2.) WE have heard Shri R. P. Dwivedi, learned Counsel for the petitioner, learned Government Advocate, learned A. G. A. and Shri B. N. Singh, learned Counsel for the Election Commission of India. This petition has been filed for a writ of mandamus directing the respondents, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Agra Region, Agra, the Senior Superintendent of Police, Agra and the District Magistrate, Agra to provide security to the petitioner till the completion of the election of Fatehgarh constituency of U. P. Legislative Assembly or any other relief the petitioner may be found entitled to by this Hon'ble Court. It is significant to note that it has been specifically mentioned in paragraph 9 of the writ petition that the petitioner has four persons, namely, Dinesh Kumar, Brahmchari Sharma, Shilendra Singh and Rakesh Bhardwaj, having fire arm licenses who are assisting the petitioner in the elections. It is further mentioned that the respondents are compelling the said persons to surrender their arms licenses and security is needed to the petitioner day and night for the purpose of contesting the elections. Although the petitioner has mentioned in paragraph 5 of the petition that he has clean antecedents, on closer scrutiny his learned Counsel was unable to substantiate this averment when the Court repeatedly questioned him as to whether any criminal cases had ever been registered against the petitioner in the past or whether he was not facing trial in any case presently. In these circumstances in our opinion the petitioner is not entitled for any relief from this Court.
(3.) IN a recent decision passed in writ petition No. 14434 of 2007, Uma Kant Yadav v. State of U. P. through Chief Secretary, Government of U. P. & Ors. , and other connected petitions decided on 23-3- 2007 a mandamus has been issued to the Station House Officers not to compel the petitioners to deposit their fire arms in pursuance of a directions of the District Magistrate, Allahabad dated 6-3-2007. It is further mentioned that the said direction was to apply not only to the present election but for all elections. IN our opinion it would be wrong to construe the order in the case of Uma Kant Yadav (supra) to mean that in no case can the District Magistrate direct deposit of fire arms during election times. Even in the said judgment. Justice Tarun Agarwala had noted that after objective assessment in individual cases and in accordance with the State Government's Order dated 11-2-2007 if there is possibility of misuse of a weapon an appropriate order in writing can be passed by the competent authority for the deposit of fire arms. In a similar matter it has been held in the case of Shesh Nath Nayak v. District Magistrate & Ors. , decided by Hon'ble S. N. Srivastava, J. on 15-4-2004 that if directives have been issued by the Election Commission in exercise of its powers of superintendence, direction and control of the conduct of all the Elections of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies under Article 324 of the Constitution, then after considering individual cases the District Authorities have all the powers to pass orders seeking deposit of fire arms in accordance with the directives, especially in the cases where the holders of the arms licenses may have criminal antecedents, or they may be persons who have been released on bail, or persons having a history of criminal offences. After extensively considering the matters, the learned Single Judge held that the petitions under scrutiny before the Court were mostly petitions in which there were neither clear averments nor the learned Counsel for the petitioners had been able to vouch for the unblemished conduct and antecedents of the petitioners nor the fact that the petitioners were not involved in any crime or their fire-arms had not been abused or misused in any criminal activities or further that the petitioners had their roots in society and as such were not likely to pose potential danger to the conduct of free and fair elections. In that back ground no interim orders were granted in favour of the petitioners but they were given liberty to represent the matter before the District Magistrate or any other authority, as the case may be, and in cases any such representations were made, they were to be decided in the light of the observations made in the judgment in Shesh Nath Nayak's case and in accordance with the guide lines of the Election Commission by a reasoned order.;