A St. Paul man claims his city’s police department has wrongly refused to return his firearm after seizing it during a traffic stop two years ago.

When Jared Sande was pulled over by St. Paul police in July 2015, he informed the officers that he had a .40-caliber handgun in the door of his vehicle, according to a civil complaint filed Monday in federal court.

Sande had a valid permit to carry, the complaint said.

After finding a small amount of marijuana and a digital scale during a search of the vehicle, the officers arrested Sande and his passenger, and confiscated Sande’s gun, according to the complaint. Sande’s passenger admitted the marijuana and the scale were his and Sande was soon released without charge, the complaint said.

But the police kept his gun.

In the intervening two years, Sande has submitted several requests to have his gun returned, but all have been denied, according to the complaint.

Most recently, he received a letter from the St. Paul Police Department on Aug. 22, saying Ramsey County’s evidence retention policy requires that the gun be sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for ballistic testing and then be held by the police department until July 2018.

Sande’s lawsuit, which names St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell as defendant, claims this constitutes a violation of Sande’s Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure and his Fifth Amendment right to due process.

Sande is seeking unspecified damages and injunctions against the St. Paul Police Department “barring the retention of firearms that are no longer being held as evidence” without a hearing and “barring the warrantless search of firearms that are not part of an ongoing criminal investigation.” The lawsuit also seeks class action status.

The police department does not comment on pending litigation, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman, on Tuesday.