Mumbai: The Bombay high Court set aside the decision of the Chembur police station and the state home department of suspending the arms license of a local resident. In its order, the HC observed that a “mere FIR” registered against the person cannot lead to revocation of his arms licence.
The court further observed that there is no averment in the FIR that the accused had misused his arms while fighting with other person. A division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi was hearing writ petition filed by Crasent Lucas D’mello, a resident of Chembur. According to petition, D’mello had challenged a November 2015 order of the Chembur police and August 3, 2016 order of the Home ministry, in which his arm licence was suspended.
The police said licence is suspended because a person named Pacival Dominic D’mello had registered an FIR against D’emello alleging that the latter assaulted him with his chappal and a wooden stick. After that the Chembur police booked him under various sections of the IPC like voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapon and intentional insult with the intent to provoke breach of the peace etc.
After pursuing the Home ministry’s order, the HC said that the petitioner’s arm licence is suspended on the ground that he had misused the arm and committed breach of public peace. This finding of home ministry is contrary to the averment made in the complaint. It is not the case of the police that the petitioner used the said arm in commission of the crime registered against him. The HC observed that merely because the FIR is registered against the person, the arm licence cannot be suspended.
