Arms Act, 1959
Section 30—Recovery of three live ammunitions—Writ petition to quash FIR—Question as to whether petitioner was in ‘conscious possession’ of ammunitions allegedly recovered from him or not—Term ‘possession’ refers to possession backed with requisite mental element, i.e. conscious possession, therefore, mere custody, without the awareness of such possession, does not constitute an offence under the Arms Act—No sufficient evidence or reasonable grounds found to justify that there was ‘conscious possession’ of live cartridges recovered from petitioner—Petitioner was not aware of live cartridges in his hand baggage, till the same were detected during screening of petitioner’s baggage, and that there is nothing on record to show that petitioner is involved in any other offence except the mere recoveries made from hand baggage of petitioner—Continuous of proceedings would be a futile exercise as the necessary ingredients to constitute the offence in question is missing—FIR quashed. [Constitution of India, 1950, Article 226]
[Paras 7, 11 & 12]