Calling New Criminal Laws By Abbreviations BNSS, BNS & BSA Not Illegal, Hard To Pronounce Titles Cause Lingual Barrier: Punjab & Haryana High Court

In a first, the Punjab & Haryana High Court has said that it will not be "violation of any law" if the new criminal laws will be called by their abbreviations i.e BNSS, BNS, BNA instead of using the complete titles in FIR, Petitions and orders to simply lengthy Hindi terminology.

Justice Anoop Chitkara opined that, "creating a shared linguistic space for people with different language backgrounds becomes crucial to fostering a sense of unity and inclusivity. The hard-to-pronounce titles cause lingual impediment, cognitive chaos, and tedium that can prevent the legal system from operating smoothly." 

"Condensing the titles of new criminal laws into initialism BNS, BNSS, and BSA will help standardize the terms in a manner that can be universally understood without grappling with linguistic competence. These are likely to reduce the cognitive load on readers by making the text more scannable and more accessible to the process, and compared to the Hindi pronunciation, it is straightforward to pronounce," the judge said.

The Court further added, a reading of “The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023,”; “The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023,” and “Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023” do not point out any restrictions not to call these statutes by their abbreviations, BNSS, BNS, and BSA, and it is time to call them by their abbreviations, which would not be violative of any law. Adopting abbreviations for the new criminal laws will not only simplify the usage of lengthy Hindi terminology in legal space but also promote inclusivity, facilitating a more accessible and efficient judicial process. Given the above, there is nothing wrong if in the FIR, Petitions, orders, etc., Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 are referred to as BNSS, BNS, BSA, respectively."

Highlighting the trend of abbreviations the Court observed, "a fad for brevity and convenience of usage led to the truncation and conciseness of long words, leading to the ever-increasing trend of abbreviations and their species of initialisms and acronyms, formal or colloquial, lol!"

The development came while hearing a pre-arrest bail plea under Section 482 of The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, (BNSS) in a corruption case.

While perusing the petition the Court noted that the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita” has been mentioned in the petition as “The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Act”.

Hence, the Court considered, " the scope of writing the abbreviation of “The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023,” as BNSS, and the other two simultaneously enacted statutes, 'The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023,' and 'Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023' as BNS and BSA, respectively."

Abbreviating words instead of spelling them out in full is a phenomenon that has existed throughout the history of written communication, from ancient inscriptions carved into stone and medieval manuscripts to modern-day instant messages, observed the bench.

Along with giving detailed references from Ancient Roman Empire to internationally recognised abbreviations today, the Court also gave various illustration to differentiate "Abbreviation"  and "Acronyms."

"Not only MPs and MLAs, even various political parties in India, with long names, like “AIMIM”, BJP, DMK, JDU, TDP etc., are widely recognized by their abbreviated/initialized forms, irrespective of the languages in which their names are composed," the Court further said.

On the issue of bail, the Court after analysing the submissions, the said that petitioner is entitled to bail on the principles of parity with similarly placed co-accused.

"Thus, without commenting on the case's merits, in the facts and circumstances peculiar to this case, and for the reasons mentioned above, the petitioner makes a case for bail, subject to Ss. 485(4), 486, 491, and 492 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and the terms and conditions on bail bonds, to the satisfaction of the Arresting Officer/ Investigator or the concerned Court, whichever is applicable," it added.

 Mr. Anurag Chopra, Addl. AG, Punjab

Mr. Gurpartap S. Bhullar, A.A.G., Punjab.

Mr. Sukhdev Singh, AAG, Punjab and Ms. Swati Batra, DAG Punjab.

Click here to read/download the order