CHENNAI: Did you know what the words ‘Acc’, ‘pro’ and ‘re’ meant in legal parlance? They may refer to ‘account’, ‘pro and con’ or ‘public relations officer’ and ‘Rupee’ in general terms.
According to a Special Judge for cases pertaining to National Investigating Agency (NIA) in Hyderabad, camping at Puducherry, Acc’ means accused, ‘pro’ means produced and ‘re’ means remand extended. This practice of using such ‘unfamiliar’ abbreviations by the lower courts was deprecated by a division bench of the Madras HC.
A bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and M Sathyanarayanan directed lower courts not to use such unfamiliar abbreviations, but to pass orders using simple language.
The orders should be understandable by a common man, more particularly, the person in whose favour or against the same is passed, the bench said while dismissing a batch of habeas corpus writ petitions (HCP)’s challenging the detention of six persons as illegal and unconstitutional, as no extension of remand order was passed by the NIA Special Judge.
According to petitioners’ counsel on three hearing dates i.e July 18, August 14 and September 12, 2014 the accused were produced before the Special Judge. But no specific orders had been passed on the remand requisitions. However, for subsequent occasions, orders had been passed extending the period of remand and presently the charge-sheet has been taken on file. The fact was that between July 18 and September 12, 2014 the petitioners were in the illegal custody.
Hence, he filed the present petition to produce them and set them at liberty. The bench, after perusing the documents said that as and when an accused was produced for extension of remand, the police officer should produce the necessary records and the presiding officer should peruse a copy of the case diary and after affording sufficient opportunity to the accused, should pass an order remanding/extending the custody.
Such an order should reflect application of the judicial mind of the magistrate. In the instant case, on the above three dates the special judge did not pass any such order after considering the request of the DSP, NIA, but only made an endorsement in the warrant authorising the detention in prison.
Issuing a warrant remanding the accused to prison is only a consequential act and that cannot be equated to an order of judicial remand, the bench said, “Though the detention between July 18 and September 12, 2014 was not by means of any valid order of remand, since on their subsequent production before the Special Court, there were valid order of remand, the detention as of now, cannot be stated to be illegal and so they cannot be set at liberty,” the bench said and dismissed the petitions.