Poll panel circular to govern deposit of arms

[sanjusdominic]

Please read the following article in The hindu on 19-01-2010
Link- http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp ... 101692.ece


Poll panel circular to govern deposit of arms

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

The Kerala High Court, on Tuesday, observed that it was imperative that the district authorities and the police should be guided by the Election Commission's circular on the deposit of licensed arms during elections.

Justice Antony Dominic, while disposing of a writ petition filed by Binesh of Kochi and others challenging the directive of the police to deposit their weapons at the police station during the previous Lok Sabha elections, ordered that the deposit of arms should be governed by the circular.

The circular said that immediately after the announcement of the elections, the District Magistrate should make a detailed and individual review and assessment of all licence holders so that the arms in those cases considered essential were deposited to ensure maintenance of law and order. These arms should be deposited with the district authorities. It stipulated constitution of a screening committee in every district and commissionerate area. The screening committee should commence its work from the day of announcement of elections and complete the screening process before the date of issue of the election notification. After getting the report from the screening committee, the licensing authority should issue notice to the licence-holders for depositing their arms before the last date fixed for withdrawal of candidature. Those who failed to deposit arms within seven days from the date of receipt of the notice shall be liable for prosecution under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. The court clarified that the guidelines would be applicable to the local body elections as well.

[mundaire]

The circular has been around for a while, see http://www.indiansforguns.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6172 for more. The court order says that the circular should be adhered to, which means that the administration needs to form a committee to review all licensees and only in the cases who are considered to be a threat to maintaining law & order should they be asked to deposit their arms... which begs the question, if they are a threat to law & order, how did they get a license in the first place! Anyhow, most/ all district administrations interpret this as an excuse to issue a blanket deposit order for all license holders, mostly because they don't have the time/ inclination to go through the process of reviewing all licensee details etc.