CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AND EVIDENCE ACT time, or the accused may be charged in the alternative with having committed some or one of those offences. 146 Essentials of indictment, summons or charge (1) Subject to this Act and except as otherwise provided in any other enactment, each count of the indictment, summons or charge shall set forth the offence with which the accused is charged in such manner, and with such particulars as to the alleged time and place of committing the offence and the person, if any, against whom and the property, if any, in respect of which the offence is alleged to have been committed, as may be reasonably sufficient to inform the accused of the nature of the charge. (2) Subject to this Act and except as otherwise provided in any other enactment, the following provisions shall apply to criminal proceedings in any court, that is to say— (a) the description of any offence in the words of any enactment creating the offence, or in similar words, shall be sufficient; and (b) any exception, exemption, proviso, excuse or qualification, whether it does or does not accompany in the same section the description of the offence in the enactment creating the offence, may be proved by the accused, but need not be specified or negatived in the indictment, summons or charge, and, if so specified or negatived, no proof in relation to the matter so specified or negatived shall be required on the part of the prosecution. (3) Where any of the particulars referred to in this section are unknown to the prosecutor, it shall be sufficient to state that fact in the indictment, summons or charge. (4) Where a person is charged with a crime listed in the second column of the Fifth Schedule to the Criminal Law Code, it shall be sufficient to charge him or her with that crime by its name only. [Subsection inserted by s. 282 of Act No. 23 of 2004] (5) No indictment, summons or charge alleging the commission of a crime mentioned in subsection (4) shall be held to be defective on account of a failure to mention the section of the Criminal Law Code under which the crime is set forth. [Subsection inserted by s. 282 of Act No. 23 of 2004] 147 Sufficient to allege dates between which thefts took place It shall be lawful in any indictment, summons or charge in respect of theft to allege that the property stated to have been stolen was taken at several different times between any two certain days named in the indictment, summons or charge, and upon such an indictment, summons or charge, proof may be given of the theft of such property upon any day or days between the two certain days aforesaid. 148 Indictment may charge general deficiency In an indictment, summons or charge in respect of the theft of money, or in respect of the theft of any property by a person entrusted with the custody or care of such property, the accused may be charged and proceeded against for the amount of a general deficiency, notwithstanding that such general deficiency is made up of any number of specific sums of money or of any number of specific articles or of a sum of money representing the value of specific articles, the taking of which extended over any space of time. 149 Not necessary to specify particular coin or bank-note stolen In any indictment, summons or charge in which it is necessary to make averment as to any money or any bank-note, it shall be sufficient to describe such money or bank-note simply as money, without specifying any particular coin or bank-note, and such averment, so far as regards the description of the property, shall be sustained by proof of any amount of coin or of any bank-note, although the particular species of coin of which such amount was composed or the particular nature of the bank-note is not proved, and in cases of money or bank-notes obtained by false pretences or by any other unlawful act, by proof that the offender obtained any coin or any bank-note or any portion of the value thereof, although such coin or bank-note 70