Is it legal to carry a concealed Ka-Bar in India?
There is no legal concept of concealed carry or open carry in India. If you can legally be in possession of the weapon, you can carry it the way you like it i.e. either concealed or open. I do not think there will be any legal problem selling the kind of knife as shown above in your video. Somewhat similar looking knives can be found already being sold in the Indian market.
Yes, Dr. Jayakumar is correct in saying the Indian law is not clear about edged arms. Rather the text of the Arms Act 1959 is contradicting to its own stated objective, also the bye law(Arms Rules 1962) is contradicting to the objective of the parent law(Arms Act 1959).
Arms Act 1959 is the main law that regulates all manner of arms. Whenever there is contradiction or confusion in the text of law, courts give more importance to the objectives of the legislation to infer the intent of legislators. One of the objectives of Arms Act 1959 says:
“(a)
to exclude knives, spears, bows and arrows and the like from the definition of ‘arms’."
But Arms Act 1959 in Section 2 contradicts its own objective and defines sharp edged implements also as "arms" and says:
"(c) "arms" means articles of any description designed or adapted as weapons for offence or defense, and includes firearms,
sharp -edged and
other deadly weapons, and parts of, and machinery for manufacturing, arms, but does not include articles designed solely for domestic or agricultural uses such as a lathi or an ordinary walking stick and weapons incapable of being used otherwise than as toys or of being converted into serviceable weapons;"
Also under the Arms Rules 1962(a bye law which was created to frame the rules for implementing Arms Act 1959) we find that it says the following:
"V. Arms other than fire-arms: Sharp-edged and deadly weapons, namely: swords (including sword-stick), daggers, bayonets, spears (including lances and javelins); battle-axes, knives (including kirpans a Khukries and other such weapons with blades longer than 9" or wider than 2" other than those designed for domestic, agricultural, scientific or industrial purpose, steel baton; "Zipo" and other such weapons called "life preserves"; machinery for making arms other than category II; and any other arms which the Central Government may notify under Sec. 4."
Reference:
http://www.abhijeetsingh.com/arms/india ... ule_I.html
Generally the following is accepted as "law" for sharp edged arms in India:
It is considered illegal to carry any knife which is:
1) Spring actuated
2) Button actuated
3) of blade more than the specified length(9 inches)and breadth(2 inches).
Sharp edged arms with blade length till 9" and blade width till 2" are considered as "legal". If you want to possess sharp edged arms of bigger dimensions then you need have a "license".
Exemptions:
1) Gurkhas are exempt from this limit of 9" blade length or 2" blade width for khukris. Similarly Sikhs are exempt from this limit of 9" blade length or 2" blade width for kirpans.
2) Implements designed for domestic, agricultural, scientific or industrial purpose are totally exempt from arms law. Hence it is not uncommon to find formidable looking kitchen knives, matchets(dao, dah), axes(gandasas) etc. of enormous dimensions on sale openly in markets.
