debtor' with reference to Bankruptcy Laws, according to Stroud's Judicial Dictionary of words and phrases, 3rd Edn., means one who departs for distant countries before the necessary proceedings can be taken to make him bankrupt or being outside the country continues to remain there with intent to defeat or delay his creditor. The primary meaning of the word' abscond' is to hide and when a person is hiding from his place of residence, he is said to abscond. A person may hide even in his place of residence or away from it and in either case he would be absconding when he hides himself. In Wharton's Law Lexicon, 14th Edn, 'abscond' has been taken to mean to fly the country in order to escape arrest for crime. Therefore, persons who gets scant of the action to be taken by the detaining authorities and leave the country in order to escape the arm of the law can be said to abscond. Similarly persons who have already left the country without the knowledge of any action to be taken against them under the Act, but who continue to remain outside the country with a view to avoid any detention order that may be passed under S.3 can also be taken to be absconding. It cannot be disputed that a person committing an offence in a particular country would ordinarily be liable to be tried according to the law of that country. If he leaves the country with a view to avoid or escape the arm of the law, he can be said to abscond so far as that country and the laws are concerned. In Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary, the word 'abscond' has been defined as to hide or to quit the country in order to escape a legal process. Therefore, if a person, before the legal process could be issued somehow or other comes to know of the issue of such a process or anticipates the issue of the process and quits the country he can be said