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‘He was asleep in bus’: HC acquits Jalandhar man who crossed into Chandigarh with pistol
On November 11, 2016, the man was apprehended and found in possession of a .32-bore pistol, along with 16 live cartridges on a CTU bus
A Jalandhar man, accused of entering Chandigarh on a bus with a pistol without a permit, has been acquitted by the Punjab and Haryana high court.
“The petitioner was asleep during the journey, so it is not reasonable to infer that he wilfully committed an offence by carrying the weapon in an unauthorised area without requisite permission,” observed the bench of justice Sanjay Vashishth while overturning the three-year jail term awarded by the trial court in 2022 and acquitting the petitioner, Amritpal Singh.
As per prosecution, on November 11, 2016, police received a wireless message that a man was carrying a weapon on a CTU bus. When the bus was stopped on the Chandigarh-Punjab border, the man was apprehended and found in possession of a .32-bore pistol, along with 16 live cartridges. With the police not recovering any valid arms licence or permit, he was booked under the Arms Act.
Challenging the trial court judgment, the petitioner had argued that he boarded the bus at Jalandhar and purchased a ticket to deboard at Mohali. The weapon was licensed and that he crossed into Chandigarh as he fell asleep.
The high court took note of the statement of the conductor who corroborated claims of the petitioner that his conduct was not suspicious. Despite his instruction to passengers destined for Phase 6, Mohali, to deboard, the petitioner did not do so and was left undisturbed, the conductor had deposed.
The court further said the petitioner was in possession of a valid arms licence for the firearm he carried. Also the prosecution failed to demonstrate that the naka was established outside the boundaries of Punjab. “In the absence of such evidence, it cannot be presumed/assumed that the area where the firearm was recovered falls beyond the jurisdiction of the state of Punjab,” the court said.
“From the entirety of the oral and documentary evidence led by the prosecution, nothing has surfaced to demonstrate that the petitioner carried the pistol and 16 live cartridges with any unlawful intent or objective,” the court held, setting the petitioner free.
