Full Judgment
Daniels, J.
1. In this case Krishna Gopal Sharma has been convicted of an offence under Section 19 of. the Arms Act. The upper storey of a house at Jhansi forming the Local Congress office was raided by the Police on 31st May last and a Mauser pistol and 64 cartridges were found in the bottom of a grain-bin in a room at the back. The room was behind the kitchen and had no doors. The upper storey was rented in the name of the accused. The accused, however, was not present at the time, and it is said that he had gone to Gawnpore five days before. At the time of the raid the key was in possession of Ajodhya Prasad to whom the accused had handed it over. There were two other members of the Local Congress present in the upper storey at the time of the search. It is further in evidence that the particular room in which the pistol and cartridges were found has no doors to it. The question is whether this is sufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the pistol and cartridges were in the possession of the accused. It does not seem to me that it is. The evidence does not exclude a reasonable possibility of a pistol having been placed there by some other of the persons who frequented the rooms or even by Ajodhya Prasad in whose possession they were at the time. The learned Sessions Judge has felt the difficulty, and the circumstance which he considers decisive is that some days afterwards the accused was arrested in possession of a revolver with cartridges of the same brand as those found in the Congress rooms. Even this, however, is not to my mind decisive, unless it is shown that the cartridges were of a peculiar kind such as no other frequenters of the Congress rooms was likely to have. It might easily be that more than one person frequenting these rooms was in possession of unlawful arms and that the type of cartridge used by both of them was the same. The case is one of some difficulty, but the evidence is, in my opinion, not quite sufficient to bring home the possession of the unlicensed arms to the accused. I, therefore, accept his appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence in this case.