- (1.) THE petitioners have come up with a prayer to command Respondent Nos. 2 and 3 (the Senior Su­perintendent of Police, Meerut and the Station House Officer, Brahmpuri, Dis­trict Meerut respectively) to close down the history-sheet which was opened in 1983 against them and to discontinue sur­veillance and domicialliary visits to them and their family.
(2.) THEY assert, inter alia, that petitioner No. 1 is B.A., aged about 32 years and is presently serving as Storekeeper in Venus Cement Factory Ltd., Dehradun and Petitioner No. 2 is B.Sc., aged about 28 years and is presently serving as an Accountant in the same Venus Cement Factory Ltd., Dehradun, that they hail from a well to do, cultured and respectable Thakur family of District Meerut, whose antecedents have been all along above board, that the members of their family resideat Brahmupuri, Meerut, that in the year 1983 both of them were falsely implicated in a criminal case under Section 395, IPC and their Criminal Ap­peal is pending before this Court, that on the basis of the aforesaid solitary case the police of Police Station Brahmpuri opened a history- sheet in 1983, which is in operation since then, that more than 11 years have passed yet the history-sheet has not been closed, that Narendra Kumar Agarwal and Abdul Fahim-Corporators of Municipal Corporation of Brahmpuri, along with other respectable persons of the locality, on 5-7-1992 submitted a memorandum (copy appended as An-nexure-1) before Respondent No. 3 recommending closure of the history-sheet in question certifying that the petitioners are leading their life like other law abiding persons against whom after 1984 no complaint or FIR was lodged, that Respondent No. 2, however, paid no heed rather continued with the surveillance, that Regulation 228 of the Police Regula­tion provides that a history-sheet should be opened only for persons who are likely to become habitual criminal or abettors of such criminals, that having regard to fair antecedents after 1983 the history-sheet ought to have been closed by Respondent Nos. 2 and 3 and the surveillance discon­tinued altogether, that Regulation 229 read with Regulation 230 make it clear that protracted surveillance shall be exercised only if the subject of an A class history-sheet is thought to be so dangerous or incorrigible, that in the garb of keeping surveillance Respondent No. 3 has been harassing and humiliating the petitioners and other inmates of the family day in and day out, that the Police have so far realised illegally quite a large sum of money byway of gratification and when resisted they were given threats of dire consequences, that the entire family of the petitioners has been, thus, greatly fear striken, that police has no authority of law to pay domicilliary visits even at the dead of nights and awaken the family members of the petitioners when they are fast asleep and ruthlessly disturb their peace and tranquillity, that these are clearly violative of their fun­damental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and that, thus, the desired writ or interim man­damus be issued. From the order-sheet it appears that on 18-10-95 an opportunity was granted to the Respondents for filing counter-affidavit before 24-11-95 and that even though on 3-4-96 three weeks time and no more further was granted for filing counter-affidavit no counter-affidavit has been filed till to date.
(3.) SRI K.K. Srivastava, learned coun­sel appearing on behalf of the petitioners after reading out Regulation Nos. 228, 229,230 and 231 of the Police Regulations and two Division Bench decisions of the Court in Jugla Sharan v. Superintendent of Police, Gonda, 1989 LLJ 345 and Guru Bux Singh Bakshi v. State of UP, 1994 JIC 229 (All) (LB), contended that in view of the unrebutted facts and circumstances men­tioned in the writ petition the continuance of surveillance is bad and the history-sheet be directed to be closed.;