HC: Is threat to life necessary for a gun licence?

“When there is danger, the police does not protect,” justice Bilal Nazki said on Thursday while hearing a petition filed by a criminal advocate who apprehended a threat to his life but was refused an arms licence.

The petitioner advocate Khan Abdul Wahab, has defended two accused in the Gateway and Zaveri Bazaar blast case and is now defending Emile Jerome in the Neeraj Grover murder case. Wahab had applied for a gun licence in August last year stating that he apprehended a threat to his life.

Additional public prosecutor Pradeep Hingorani told the court that after receiving his application, the state home department that sanctions had inferred that there was no threat to his life.

The court, however, was of the view that there is “no application of mind” in the police’s decision to refuse Wahab a licence. “Is it necessary to have a threat to life? Does that mean that all the people who have been given a licence had a threat to their life?” Nazki asked.

Justice Nazki and Anoop Mohta have sought a list from the state with names of persons who were given an arms licence between 2005 and 2008 and the reason for the same.

Arguing for Wahab, his counsel SR Chitnis said that there have been attacks on criminal advocates like Majeed Memon and two advocates who were killed — Liaqat Ali and Kishore Sutrale — were undefended. He pointed out to the court that under section 14 of the Arms Act, 1959, having no threat to life is no ground to refuse someone a licence. Under the Act, only a person of an unsound mind or a person who can be a threat to public peace and safety can be refused a licence.