IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established in the judgment is that 'possession' under the Arms Act must have the element of consciousness or knowledge, and even if the factum of physical possession is made out, the court must enquire if a mental element was also present.

JUDGMENT (Oral)

1. The present petition has been instituted under Section 482, Cr.P.C. seeking quashing of FIR No. 243/2022 registered under Section 25 of the Arms Act, 1959 at P.S. IGI Airport, New Delhi and the proceedings emanating therefrom.

2. Petitioner has claimed that she was residing in Meerut, U.P. and that somewhere in the month of June, 2022, she received a job offer from Pune, Maharashtra. The petitioner accepted the offer and decided to shift to Pune alongwith her family. In this regard, the petitioner has placed on record a Leave and Licence Agreement of a flat at Pune which was taken on rent from June, 2022 onwards as well as a receipt of Mahindra Packers Movers for transport of house hold articles to Pune. The petitioner decided to travel by Air India Flight bearing No.AI-851 on 18.06.2022 and at the time of scanning of her baggage, 8 live rounds and 5 empty cartridges were detected in it, which led to registration of the present FIR.

3. Petitioner claims that she had used one of the empty baggage lying in her matrimonial home and was not aware of the live and empty cartridges lying inside it. The said ammunition, in fact, belonged to her father-in-law, who during his lifetime, was holder of a valid and subsisting licence for NPB Revolver/Pistol No. D1370. The arm licence bearing No. 1075/Lalkurti/Meerut had been issued on 20.03.2002 by the District Magistrate, Meerut. The said licence was valid upto 16.02.2017. The petitioner's father-in-law had expired on 18.04.2017, whereafter petitioner's husband had deposited the said weapon alongwith the ammunition at Vikas Gun House, a licensed dealer in compliance of Section 21 of the Arms Act, 1959. The petitioner's husband also applied for transfer of the said licence in his own name. The said weapon is stated to be lying deposited with said licence dealer even now. The petition is accompanied by the surrender certificate as well as death certificate of petitioner's father-in-law namely Late Shri Tejveer Singh.

4. On the strength of the above submissions, the petitioner contends that she was not in conscious possession of the seized ammunitions.

5. During the investigation, the seized live as well as empty cartridges were sent to FSL for examination and expert opinion. As per the FSL Report, the same were found covered under the Arms Act. A Status Report has also been placed on record as per which the arms licence stood issued in favour of the petitioner's father-in-law. The arm licence issued by the District Magistrate, Meerut was verified and found to be valid till 17.02.2017. It was also verified that the gun was deposited with Vikas Gun House on 24.10.2017.

6. To make out an offence under Section 25 of the Arms Act, the possession must be `conscious possession' meaning thereby that offender had the knowledge and was not unaware of it.[Gunwantlal v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (1972) 2 SCC 194]

7. In a similar view, a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court in Sanjay Dutt v. State Through CBI, Bombay (II), (1994) 5 SCC 410 elucidated the meaning of possession to be conscious possession and not mere custody, lacking any knowledge or intention to use:

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19. The meaning of the first ingredient of `possession' of any such arms etc. is not disputed. Even though the word 'possession' is not preceded by any adjective like 'knowingly', yet it is common ground that in the context the word 'possession' must mean possession with the requisite mental element, that is, conscious possession and not mere custody without the awareness of the nature of such possession. There is a mental element in the concept of possession. Accordingly, the ingredient of 'possession' in Section 5 of the TADA Act means conscious possession. This is how the ingredient of possession in similar context of a statutory offence importing strict liability on account of mere possession of an unauthorised substance has been understood. (See Warner v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner, (1969) 2 A.C. 256 and Sambasiv