Conscious Possession of Firearm Must For Proceeding under Arms Act

In the case of Wasim Soliman vs. State of Delhi (NCT), the Delhi High Court on Tuesday passed an order relating to the possession of Ammunition with civilians.

What happened?

The petitioner was travelling to Vishakhapatnam from Delhi when during a security check a live cartridge was found in bag.

He was accompanied by his wife and minor child. At the time, Soliman told that he had no knowledge of it being in his bag and the bag in question belonged to his brother, who was in the army.

The petitioner’s brother had used the bag earlier and that Soliman was not in conscious possession of the cartridge. He further stated that he had travelled by air the same day and no such detection was done earlier.

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Conscious Possession of Firearm Must For Proceeding under Arms Act

The court looked at the material submitted by the petitioner, i.e.:

1. A true copy of the license

2. Weapon Card of the petitioner’s brother

3. Army ID of the petitioner’s brother

Giving the said order, Hon’ble Justice Yogesh Khanna referred to past judgements wherein ‘Unconscious Possession’ was talked about.

In one of the case that of Sonam Chaudhary & Ors v The State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi) & Ors., it was said that

“…considering the fact that the petitioners had left behind the live cartridge/cartridges in their luggage by mistake and/or inadvertent oversight, the petitioners were not aware of the presence of the live cartridge/cartridges in their handbags till the same was detected by the security personnel during the screening of the baggage at the concerned places, it can be safely inferred that the said possession does not fall within the ambit of ‘conscious possession…..Therefore, allowing the continuance of the criminal proceedings against them would be an abuse of the process of Court”

Thus, the FIR against the petitioner was quashed and it was held that he was not in conscious possession of the weapon and could therefore not be held liable against it.