Ameer Ali vs The State Of Tamil Nadu Rep.by The Inspector Of Police & Anr.

The petitioner, arrayed as the twelfth accused in P.R.C. No.17 of 2026 pending before the Judicial Magistrate Court No.IV, Madurai, invokes Section 528 of the BNSS, 2023, asking this Court to send for the records and quash the final report as against him. The offences alleged are under Sections 25(1-B)(c) read with 8(1), and 25(8) read with Sections 3, 5 and 10 of the Arms Act, 1959.

The de facto complainant, a life member and the Vice President of the Madurai Rifle Club, set the law in motion on a suspicion that members of the club were using foreign weapons brought into the country without clearance from the competent authority.

The investigation that followed threw up the following narrative. The first accused, a British national holding a firearms licence, acquired a German Blaser R-8 .30-06 rifle, broke it down into components and despatched them to India by courier without authorisation, the weapon eventually reaching the eighth accused. The eighth accused then alerted the first accused to the ready market for foreign rifles in India, and the two resolved to bring more such weapons in. Over the period 2018 to 2023, the first accused sourced rifles from Rojal Armoury in Slovenia and from a licence holder in London, dismantled them, packed the parts and shipped them to India declared as cricket bats, toys and the like. Those consignments were received by the second accused.

The second accused is said to have reassembled the components. Roughly twelve of the reassembled foreign rifles went to the third and fourth accused, and a further eleven to the fifth accused, for consideration. The third accused runs an arms and ammunition dealership at Dindigul; the fourth accused is his son. They are alleged to have routed imports through the first accused and manufactured bills to give the impression that the foreign rifles had been bought over the counter from a shop. The weapons were then entered in the licence book of the eighth accused and produced before the District Collector, Madurai. The charge sheet asserts that the same modus was adopted by several other armoury proprietors, namely accused Nos.6 to 11.

So far as the present petitioner (A12) is concerned, the accusation is that he hails from Palakkad, carries on an armoury business in his father’s name and himself holds a licence. He is said to have come to know the tenth accused and, later, the thirteenth accused. The allegation is that, with criminal intent, he bought a Cal. .30-06 Savage rifle of USA make bearing No.N040511 from the tenth accused, aware that it had been smuggled into the country, and passed it on to the thirteenth accused — a resident of Thiruvananthapuram who holds a firearms licence and competes in shooting events — who purchased it, equally aware of its illicit origin.

Reduced to its essentials, the charge against A12 is that a licensed dealer from Palakkad, in business with his father, came into contact with A10 and A13, knowingly took delivery of a smuggled foreign rifle from A10, resold it to A13, and that the markings on the weapon were interchanged so as to pass off an illegal firearm as a licensed one. It is this charge sheet that is under challenge.

Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the charge sheet says no more than this: that the petitioner, whose father runs an armoury in Kerala, holds a gun licence, takes part in shooting competitions, and sold a rifle to A13 knowing it to be smuggled. Beyond that solitary allegation, the petitioner does not figure in the case at all.

He further submitted that not one of the witnesses examined under Section 161 Cr.P.C. attributes any specific overt act to the petitioner. The petitioner, it was pointed out, is a national-level shooter holding both a gun licence and a licence to run an armoury. The statement of L.W.17 is hearsay and therefore of no evidentiary worth. There is no allegation that the petitioner tampered with any number on the rifle, and his register reflects dealings in Indian weapons only, not the rifle in question. On these grounds, quashing was sought.

The learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side), resisting the petition, traced the movement of the weapon: from A3 through to A10, from A10 to A12, and from A12 to A13. A13 then approached L.W.17 to sell the rifle, leaving it in his armoury pending sale. It was at that stage that the weapon’s foreign origin and its smuggled character came to light.

He further submitted that the petitioner did not appear despite summons served under the relevant provisions of the BNSS. Separate registers seized from him record the sale, by A12 to A13, of a weapon bearing the barrel number found on the foreign rifle. The rifle carries two barrel numbers — one Slovenian, one Indian — which, it was argued, establishes the petitioner’s awareness that the weapon was foreign and had been smuggled in. The prosecution case is that the petitioner substituted an Indian barrel number on the foreign rifle and sold it to A13 as though it were an Indian weapon. Significantly, the Indian rifle actually bearing that barrel number could not be traced.

The separate registers recovered from the petitioner, it was submitted, record the transaction with A13 as a sale of an Indian rifle. On that footing the weapon was placed before the District Collector and permission obtained. As for L.W.17, his account is not hearsay: A13 himself approached him to keep the weapon pending sale, and told him directly that it had been bought from A12.

Finally, it was urged that the material on record is sufficient to put the petitioner on trial, that no ground for quashing has been made out, and that the seized registers together with the material object — the foreign rifle bearing images of both barrel numbers — disclose a prima facie case. Dismissal was accordingly sought.

Submissions on both sides were heard and the records perused.

The petitioner’s case rests principally on the proposition that nothing on record links him to the other accused. Apart from the statement of A13 and that of L.W.17 — the latter being, on his submission, inadmissible hearsay — no document has been produced connecting him to the offence.

On a reading of the charge sheet, the accusation against the petitioner falls into two limbs: first, that he sold a foreign rifle smuggled into India without the competent authority’s prior permission; and second, that he sold it to A13 after substituting an Indian barrel number on it. The rifle recovered by the investigating agency is said to bear two barrel numbers.

The list of material objects tells its own story. The petitioner’s purchase register and sale register, marked as M.O.Nos.60 and 61, show that he acquired this very foreign rifle from A10 and sold it to A13. Permission for that sale was obtained from the District Collector, Thiruvananthapuram, which is M.O.64.

L.W.17’s statement is to the effect that A13 approached him to leave the gun at his shop and received Rs.3 lakhs through his bank account; that he thereafter noticed something amiss — two numbers on the weapon, the numbering having been altered; and that he asked A13 to take back the money and the gun, which A13 declined to do. A13 told him the weapon had been purchased from A12 and that it was an illegally smuggled foreign firearm. Of the two barrel numbers on the rifle, the one of Indian origin is precisely the number appearing in the petitioner’s purchase and sale registers. The prosecution’s case is that a Slovenian rifle was smuggled in and given an additional Indian barrel number so that it could change hands freely within the country. M.O.Nos.60 and 61 bear out that correspondence.

It follows that the petitioner dealt with a Slovenian rifle under the cover of an Indian-origin barrel number. The submission that there is nothing on record tying him to the smuggling of, or dealing in, foreign firearms therefore cannot be accepted. A prima facie case exists warranting his trial. The observations in this order are confined to the disposal of the quash petition; the trial Court shall decide the case on its merits and in accordance with law, uninfluenced by anything said here.

For the reasons set out above, no case for quashing the charge sheet has been made out. The Criminal Original Petition is dismissed and the connected miscellaneous petitions are closed.

After pronouncement of the order, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner submits that the personal appearance of the petitioner before the trial Court may be dispensed with. Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the personal appearance of the petitioner shall stand dispensed with, unless specifically directed by the trial Court.