K. C. Agarwal, J. - (1.) THIS writ petition has been filed by Awadhesh Kumar Misra against the order of the District Magistrate, Kanpur Nagar, suspending his licence no. 11459 of a revolver on 30th June, 1987. The petitioner (Awadhesh Kumar Misra) was asked to deposit the revolver in the Malkhana and he was further called upon to show cause against its cancellation. The only ground which has been made for passing of the impugned order is the pendency of a criminal case under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code against the petitioner. The incident relating to this occurred on 31st March, 1986. The allegation against the petitioner was that he used his licenced revolver to shoot one Bhalloo Dahivale. Apart from the merits, the ground urged before us was that since the power of suspension pending enquiry has not been specifically conferred upon the District Magistrate, the impugned order is liable to be quashed on that basis.
(2.) FOR the argument advanced reliance was placed on a judgment reported in Raghuvir Sahai v. District Magistrate, 1986 AWC 1074. In this case the Bench held :- " In the instant case the District Magistrate has suspended the licences pending an enquiry, it is apparent that his satisfaction that it was necessary for public peace and security that the licences of the petitioners deserved to be suspended must be treated as tentative and not final within the meaning of Section 17 (3) of the Act. The District Magistrate has by the impugned order called upon the petitioners to show cause why their licences should not be revoked. The impugned order is thus clearly unwarranted in law." Reference may be made to the relevant part of Sections 3, 13, 14 and 17 of the Arms Act. Section 17 (3) confers power on the licencing authority to suspend a licence for such period as it thinks fit or revoke a licence. The contention on behalf of the State was that expression 'suspend a licence for such period as it thinks fit ' enables the licencing authority to suspend a licence pending enquiry. The counsel urged that in the event of finding that the power of suspension can be used only as a final measure and not during the pendency of the enquiry, the purpose of sub-section (3) of Section 17 would be frustrated. It is, no doubt, true that purpose of an Act or a section is a useful guide for understanding a provision. In C. P. Sahu v. State, 1984 AWC 145 on which reliance has been placed on behalf of the petitioner, the question that came for consideration before a Full Bench was whether the licencing authority was powered to suspend an arms licence pending enquiry into its cancellation. The Full Bench held that the District Magistrate could out right cancel a licence obtained under the Arms Act without an opportunity being given to the person affected by it. In paragraphs 8 and 18 of C. P. Sahu's case the Full Bench observed that a holder of licence is not entitled to any hearing by the District Magistrate and the only course open to such an aggrieved person was to seek redress before the appellate authority. The view further was that even after passing the order revoking licences the District Magistrate could afford an opportunity of showing that the order directing cancellation of the licence was not justified.
(3.) THE correctness of C. P. Sahu's case came up for consideration before a Full Bench of five Judges in Kailash Nath v. State, 1985 AWC 493. THE Full Bench also took the view that obtaining of a licence for acquisition or possession of fire arm and ammunition under the Arms Act is nothing more than a privilege and the ground of such privilege did not involve the adjudication of the rights of an individual entailing civil consequences. It 'was ruled in this case that post decisional hearing if given that would fulfil the requirements of principles of natural justice. THE Full Bench said :- " In other words, it is incumbent upon the licencing authority to refrain from touching finality to the order of cancellation until the aggrieved licence- holder has been heard by such authority and his objections have been adjudicated. THE licencing authority can also, for the furtherance of his immediate remedial action, exercise the incidental power of directing the licence holder to surrender his licence until the objections have been decided." The observations extracted above were interpreted by one of the Division Benches as admitting the power of suspension pending enquiry under Section 17 (3) of the Arms Act. However, in Raghubir Sahai v. District Magistrate a different view has been taken.;