Kripashankar Singh was a man in a hurry, at least a month before the Assembly elections.

The Assembly polls were scheduled for October 13. But just before the poll code could be enforced in mid-September, Singh, in his capacity as Minister of State for Home in the Democratic Front government, approved an unprecedented 349 arms licences in a month.

While some approvals were for friends, others were for those with criminal records.

One Sri Prakash Shukla, who secured Singh’s approval for possessing a gun, has cases of attempt to murder and assault registered against him at the Saki Naka police station.

Mehmood Usman Raeen, another beneficiary, has also been accused by the Saki Naka police of attempt to murder and assault.

Bombay Intelligence, the security agency of R N Singh, leader of the Uttar Bharatiya Sangh, was also reportedly granted some arms licences (recently, R N Singh strongly protested Kripashankar’s exclusion from the Vilasrao Deshmukh Cabinet).

Kripashankar denied granting any licence to Bombay Intelligence, but R N Singh confirmed his agency had received “at least eight-nine” licences recently.

Singh told this paper that the figure of 349 clearances was incorrect and that he did not remember the exact number. However, he added, “Some 1,400 files were pending for the last five years. I don’t like the piling up of files; I always like to clear a file quickly.”

When told that some of the beneficiaries were criminals, Singh said, “I should not be held solely responsible These are collective decisions of the home ministry panel, not mine alone.”

Mumbai police is the arms-issuing authority. Any citizen who wants to possess weapons has to make an application to the city police commissioner or collector along with the supporting documents and has to state the reasons he wants to possess arms or the threat perception, if any.

If the police are convinced, they may grant the licence, but if they aren’t, they may reject the application and mention the grounds for rejection.

A rejected applicant can then go to the home department, which is like a higher court of appeal.

Here, a panel screens rejected applications and sends them back to the Mumbai police, sometimes with the observation that the licence should be given since the grounds for rejection do not hold any more.

Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R R Patil, who was home minister in the earlier government too, had the power of admission or rejection of such appeals.

However, in July this year, he delegated this authority to his two junior ministers, Rajendra Darda (for matters regarding city police) and Kripashankar Singh (for issues regarding rural police).

By August, Darda’s authority too was delegated to Singh, thus making him the sole authority to oversee issuing of arms licences.

However, Mumbai police are in no mood to accept his swift clearances. It is reliably learnt that in an attempt to stall the licences given to goons, Mumbai Police Commissioner A N Roy has sent a report to the home department detailing why those applicants whose requests have been cleared by Singh should not be given licences.

The top brass of the police feels at least 70-80 clearances made by Singh must be revoked, it is learnt.

Roy declined to comment, saying, “it is an internal issue of the department.”