Pendakwa Raya v 1. ) ZAINUDIN BIN ABD WAHAB 2. ) MUHAMMAD AZIMUDDIN ANWAR BIN AMIR HAMZAH

Case Significance

Illustrates the supervisory use of criminal revision under section 323 of the Criminal Procedure Code to set aside an irregular conditional-release order made at the expiry of remand, keeping remand practice within the statutory scheme.

This High Court decision at Johor Bahru is a criminal revision that corrected an irregular remand order before it could harden into practice. Unusually, the revision was referred to the High Court by the Magistrate herself under section 323(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, seeking confirmation of whether an investigating officer from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia, SPRM) was, at the expiry of the remand period, required to obtain a further order releasing the suspects on conditional bail. The two suspects had first been produced before the Magistrate on 23 October 2024 on an application for remand under section 117 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and remand was granted for six days until 28 October 2024. On the latter date the investigating officer again brought the suspects before the Magistrate, and the order then made — releasing the suspects subject to additional conditions — became the subject of the revision.

The court examined the statutory scheme for remand and bail, including the powers of an anti-corruption investigating officer. It noted that section 29(3) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 requires such an officer, on reasonable suspicion of an offence, to cause an investigation to be made and, for that purpose, to exercise the investigation powers conferred by that Act and by the Criminal Procedure Code. Applying that framework, the court concluded that the order made by the Magistrate on 28 October 2024, imposing conditional release with additional conditions, was a procedural irregularity in the remand process that ought to be set aside before it became a new norm in remand applications.

The court decided in favour of the applicant and set aside the Magistrate's order of 28 October 2024, holding it void with immediate effect for want of legal force. The judgment illustrates the supervisory use of criminal revision under section 323 to correct an irregular remand order and to keep remand practice within the bounds of the Criminal Procedure Code.