The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday sought reply from the federal and provincial governments on a petition challenging the government’s decision of directing people to place their arms licence before NADRA until October 5. The government has authorised to reissue the arms licences after the verification of each license holder’s identity from the NADRA database.
Justice Mansoor Ali Shah passed the order on identical petitions filed by Tasser Hussan and 18 other citizens including arms dealers. The petitioners pleaded that the government could not change the procedure for issuance of arms’ licences without amending the arms licence act 1965 and the arms licence rules 1920 and since the government had not done so, it could not hand over the task of issuing the licences to NADRA or any other authority in this regard.
The petitioners said that on the government’s directions, the interior and home ministries had unlawfully published advertisements in national daily newspapers directing the public to contact NADRA offices for getting computerised, verified arms licences by handing over old arms licences to NADRA. About the change in the procedure, the petitioners through their counsel argued that according to laws after necessary amendment in arms licence act 1965 and arms licence rules 1920, the government had to issue an amendment notification for people’s knowledge and as part of the government record.
They said government neither issued any notification nor amended the laws as required under the legal process and it had unlawfully handed over the task to the NADRA without following the laws of the land. The petitioner submitted that NADRA which was already unable to meet the burden of issuance of CNIC to the public could not issue arms licence without putting people in disorganised queues which people dislike due to NADRA’s poor functioning.
The court after hearing the arguments of the petitioners’ counsel sought reply from the respondents including ministry of interior and the federal and provincial governments.
