HC asks Azad Maidan cops to hear SoBo bizman over missing guns

Strap: Kilachands need to register the case at a PS as the firearms are part of the estate to be split up between heirs

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has directed the Azad Maidan police station to hear a South Mumbai businessman and his mother’s complaint about four missing firearms that were licensed in the name of their predecessors.

Earlier, the mother-son duo had tried to lodge a case with the Arms and Ammunition Department of the Mumbai Police for the missing firearms in 2021, but the officials were reluctant to lodge a case.

The family is awaiting distribution of its patriarch Ambalal Kilachand’s estate. It is concerned about the missing firearms — two SBBL rifles, a pistol and a .32 bore Savage pistol — as the Arms Act states that in the event of a firearm going missing the same has to be intimated through a complaint to the police, but the Malabar Hill police did not register their complaint.

The division bench of justice Prasanna Varale and justice Nitin Borkar, while hearing the petition of Ramila Kilachand and her son Amrish Kilachand, was informed by advocate Omprakash Parihar that the mother and son had to approach the HC in 2021 after the police failed to act on their complaint on the firearms issued in the name of Ambalal Kilachand and his son Rajnikant Kilachand, Ramila’s husband.

The bench was further informed that the family had also tried to lodge a complaint of forgery against unknown persons who had sought to renew the license in the name of Rajnikant, two years after his demise. Parihar further submitted that after the mother-son duo’s failed attempt to lodge an FIR at the Azad Maidan police station, they had approached the HC.

According to the petition, three of the four firearms in question were licensed in the name of Ambalal Kilachand while the license of the Savage pistol was in the name of Rajnikant Kilachand. After the demise of Ambalal Kilachand in 1987, his estate, which included the three guns, was in the custody of an estate executor/administrator, who was to distribute it among the heirs.

However, based on an email communication of 2014 by Harsh Khilachand, Amrish Kilachand’s brother, and another son of Rajnikant Kilachand, the guns licensed to Ambalal Khilachand had been sold to some unknown person in 1989 while Ambalal’s estate was with an executor. The petition states that it could not be done as no part of the property, including the guns, had been distributed or handed over to the heirs.

The petition further states that Rajnikant Kilachand died in 1997 but based on responses to an RTI query by Ramila Kilachand, she was informed that her husband had applied for renewal of the license in 1999. The petition states that as neither the wife nor the son (Amrish Kilachand) knew about the whereabouts of the weapon and they were concerned about the firearm falling into the wrong hands. This led them to the Malabar Hill police station as they sought to trace the firearm and lodge a complaint against the person who had applied for renewal of the license. Thereafter, they were informed that they should approach the Azad Maidan police station.

In response to the submissions of the mother-son duo, additional public prosecutor M M Deshmukh, for the police, informed the bench that the Azad Maidan police had asked Amrish Kilachand to visit the police station between August and October 2021 to record his statement. However, he had replied that as the issue was in HC, he would only act on court’s directions.

After hearing the submissions, the bench directed Amrish Kilachand to attend Azad Maidan police station and record his statement; it also directed the police to take down Ramila Kilachand’s statement at her residence as she was bed-ridden. The court then posted the hearing of the petition to October 17.