Man caught with 50 ammunition cartridges at IGI Airport moves Delhi High Court for quashing of FIR

The Delhi High Court recently issued notice in a petition filed by a man who was caught with 50 live cartridges of .22mm calibre rounds in his check-in baggage at Terminal 3 of Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (Gurjit Singh Sandhu v. State)..The petitioner, an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholder, had moved the Court seeking quashing of the first information report (FIR) registered against him..A Single-Judge Bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad ordered,"The petitioner's case is that he has an arms license in Canada which permitted him to carry the cartridges. Issue notice. The same stands returnable on February 7.""50 Cartridges! Tomorrow you will carry the whole magazine and claim unconscious possession," the Court also remarked in lighter vein..The Court directed the State to file a status report with regard to the FIR registered against the petitioner. The matter will be heard again on February 7, 2021..Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner was a Canadian Citizen and an OCI cardholder who was heading to Amritsar to meet his relatives. While he was catching a connecting flight to Amritsar at New Delhi, he was stopped at the check-in counter of Terminal 3 and subsequently, an FIR was registered against him under Section 25 of the Arms Act, 1959.It was also argued that there was no conscious possession of the said cartridges in his baggage. In fact, he stated that he possessed a firearms license in Canada and that the cartridges detected by the metal detectors as part of the check-in luggage only added to his case of unconscious possession. .On the basis of the claim of unconscious possession, the petitioner was granted bail by a trial court within a week from the date of registration of the said FIR.Thereafter, he moved an application seeking permission to travel abroad to Canada, which was permitted by a Patiala House Court for a period of six months, subject to his furnishing an FDR of ₹50,000, among other conditions..The petitioner then filed the current petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) seeking quashing of the FIR registered against him.Advocates Shreeyash U Lalit and Aamir Chaudhary appeared for the petitioner. Advocate Sanjay Lal appeared for the State..Read order here