‘Holding an arms licence not useful if one can’t keep the ammunition for it’: Why a Delhi court said no to police plea against discharge of accused in Arms Act

Chaudhary had told the court that he had a valid licence for a revolver, which had been issued by the district magistrate of Ghaziabad. This fact had been verified by police during the investigation. Despite this, the accused was chargesheeted under Section 25 of the Arms Act.

In her order dated October 28, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Deepti Devesh of Patiala House Court said: “During the course of arguments on the present revision petition, the accused had produced his original licence… Obviously, holding an arms licence is not much useful if the accused cannot keep ammunition for using in the said arm. The ammunition has been recovered from the accused in this case, which clearly belongs to the same fire arm.”

“The accused has explained that he was supposed to travel and he had inadvertently left the cartridges in his travel bag. Thus, it is clearly established that possession of ammunition by the accused itself was not illegal in light of the fact that he held a valid arms licence on the date of recovery,” the order said.

The man had been discharged by a Magistrate court in August 2023. According to the FIR, five 0.32 mm live cartridges had been “intentionally concealed” in the hand baggage of the accused who was travelling to Surat from Delhi. The FIR said that the “intentions of the passenger seemed doubtful”.

Section 25 of The Arms Act says that “Whoever manufactures, obtains, procures, sells, transfers, converts, repairs, tests or proves, or exposes or offers for sale or transfer, or has in his possession for sale, transfer, conversion, repair, test or proof, any arms or ammunition in contravention of section 5…shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years but which may extend to imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to fine.”

Section 5 of the Act relates to “Licence for manufacture, sale, etc., of arms and ammunition”. It penalises the use or possession of any firearm or ammunition “unless he holds in this behalf a licence issued in accordance with the provisions of this Act and the rules made thereunder”.

Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show that cases lodged under The Arms Act have shot up from just 921 in 2013 to 3,579 in 2023 – an almost four-fold increase in a decade.

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