The Hindu : SC ruling on knowledge of arms dump

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 13, 2003

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SC ruling on knowledge of arms dump

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI April 12. The Supreme Court has reiterated that a mere knowledge of the accused that incriminating articles (like arms) were kept at a certain place would not amount to a conscious possession of arms warranting conviction under the TADA Act.

A Bench, comprising Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Justice G.P. Mathur, cited the ruling in the Sanjay Dutt case and said that to hold an accused guilty of an offence under Sec. 5 of TADA Act, the prosecution was required to prove satisfactorily that the accused was in the conscious possession, unauthorisedly in a notified area of any arm or ammunition of the specified disruption.

Writing the judgment for the Bench, Mr. Justice Mathur said the fact of recovery by the accused was compatible with the circumstance of somebody else having placed the articles there and of the accused somehow acquiring knowledge of their whereabouts and that being so, the fact of recovery could not be regarded as conclusive proof that the accused possessed the articles.

In this case, Salim Akthar alias Mota was convicted and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for five years under Sec. 5 of TADA Act by a Designated Court in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh on the ground that a polythene bag containing one pistol, cartridge, and RDX weighing 1 kg were recovered from a pit, based on the information given by him.

It was contended by the appellant that it was not possible to hold possession of arms merely because recovery was made.

Allowing the appeal, the Bench held that it was not possible to hold that the accused was in the actual possession of the articles alleged to have been recovered from him and set aside the conviction.

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