A division bench, comprising Justice Arun Kumar and Justice Man Mohan Sareen, while issuing notices to the Ministries of Home Affairs and Finance and Delhi police in a recent order, asked them to file a detailed reply by August 5 about the arms sold to the MPs at five per cent of the cost.

The petition filed by Ozair Husain, an activist of People For Animals (PFA), an NGO, through counsel Raj Panjwani alleged that the arms purchased between April 1995 and December 1998 were ``invariably used for purposes other than protection from conceived threats'' by these MPs and sought cancellation of their licences.

``Guns have always been used for purposes other than self defence, like intimidation during elections, disputes over land property, religious fanaticism, family feuds, poaching and theft of forestproduce,'' the petitioner alleged.

Citing an example, the petitioner alleged that former union minister Vinod Sharma, father of Manu Sharma, the main accused in the Jessica Lal murder case, had purchased a Webley Scott revolver worth Rs two lakh, for a paltry Rs 9,000. The petitioner asked whether the Government was justified in selling the sophisticated weapons exclusively to MPs at five per cent of the cost and claimed it violated the Arms Act.

The petitioner said the court should seek details from the Government whether it had followed ``just, fair and proper norms'' for the sale of the arms seized by the Customs and whether the licences to the MPs were issued after proper inquiry or in a ``mechanical manner, without application of mind''.

The petitioner asked whether the licencees were entitled to possess the guns even after they ceased to be the Members of Parliament and the authorities examined material to their satisfaction when they (MPs) applied for renewal of their licences after the mandatoryperiod of three years.

The direction of the Ministry of Finance authorising the sale of the guns in the absence of any guidelines to the MPs at a much lower rate was ``arbitrary'', the petitioner alleged and claimed it had resulted in a ``substantial'' loss to the State Exchequer.

Submitting that 52,348 arms had been registered with the licencing authorities in the Capital till October last year, the petitioner claimed that many of these were prohibited, including 530 carbines and over 4,000 rifles of different models.