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GUIDING RULES OF INTERPRETATION
(^) LANGUAGE OF STATUTE SHOULD BE READ AS IT IS. Avoiding addition or substitution of words, Casus omissus, Avoiding rejection of words, Departure from the rule. (^) THE RULE OF LITERAL CONSTRUCTION. Natural and grammatical meaning, Explanation of the rule, Exact meaning preferred to loose meaning, Technical words in technical sense. (^) REGARD TO SUBJECT AND OBJECT. General, Rule of Heydon’s case, purposive construction: Mischief rule (^) REGARD TO CONSEQUENCES. Hardship, inconvenience, injustice, absurdity and anomaly to be avoided; Inconsistency and repugnancy to be avoided; harmonious construction; When reconciliation not possible; Avoiding uncertainty and friction in the system which the statute purports to regulate.
LANGUAGE OF THE STATUTE SHOULD BE READ AS IT
IS
The intention of the legislature is primarily to be gathered from the language used, which means that attention should be paid to what has been said as also to what has not been said. As a consequences a construction which requires for its support addition or substitution of words or which results in rejection of words as meaningless has to be avoided. Shyam Kishore Devi v. Patna Municipal Corporation, “the words of a statute never should, in interpretation, be added to or subtracted from without almost a necessity”. This rule like other rules is subject to exceptions. This rule has been approved by the Supreme Court. To be simple, some words might be required to be rejected or to be added and this has to be avoided.
To brief the court cannot reframe the legislation for the very good reason that the court has no power to legislate – State of Kerala v. Mathai Verghese. (^) British India General Insurance Co. Ltd. V. Captain Itbar Singh , AIR 1959. Section 96(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, is exhaustive of defences open to an insurer, the Supreme court refused to add word “also” after the words “on any of the following grounds” and observed that this rules of interpretation, do not permit us to do unless the section as it stands is meaningless or of doubtful meaning. (^) K.M.Vishwanath Pillai v. K.M.Sannughan Pillai, AIR 1969. The principle substitution or addition of words to be avoided, Section 42(1) of the Motor Vehicles Act,1939, which enacts that “ no owner of a transport vehicle shall use or permit the use of the vehicle in any public place save in accordance with the conditions of a permit granted or countersigned”
The Supreme court held that the section did not make it necessary that the owner of the vehicle himself should obtain the permit and that there was no justification for reading the words “to him” after the words “permit granted”. (^) Union of India v. Deoki Nandan Aggarwala, AIR 1992. In construing Part I of the first schedule to the High Court Judges (Conditions of Service) Act, 1954, the Supreme Court strongly disapproved the view of the Allahabad High Court which had substituted the words “more than five years” for the words “not less than seven years” in para 2 of the schedule. It is not the duty of the court to enlarge the scope of legislation when the language of the provision is plain. It cannot rewrite the legislation for the reason that it had no power to legislate. The power to legislate has not been conferred on the courts.
ii. CASUS OMISSUS- Cases of Omission, the omission in a statute
cannot be supplied by construction.
It means a case omitted from the language of the section, but within
the general scope of the statute, and which appears to have been omitted
by inadvertence or because it was overlooked or unforeseen.
It is an application of the same principle that a matter which should
have been, but has not been provided for in a statute cannot be supplied
by courts, as to do so will be legislation and not construction- “ Hansraj
Gupta v. Dehra Dun Mussoorie Electric Tramway Co. Ltd ., AIR
A matter which should have been provided but actually has not been
provided in a statute cannot be supplied by the courts, as to do so will be
legislation and not construction.
TWO MAIN PRINCIPLES: well settled principles. (^) Casus omissus. (^) Regard to reading statute as a whole- the language employed in the statute is the determinative factor of the legislative intent. The first and primary rule of construction is that the intention of the legislature must be found in the words used in the legislature itself. The question is not what may be supposed and has been intended, but what has been said. The court only interprets the law and cannot legislate it. P.K.Unni case & Dadi Jagannadam case: (^) These cases relate to construction of Rule 89 , Order 21 of CPC after the amendment. (^) In P.K.Unni Case the period of limitation for making deposit preceding application for setting aside sale under Rule 89 Order 21, of CPC, is 30 days from the date of sale under Rule 92(2), while that for making the subsequent
iii. AVOIDING REJECTION OF WORDS:
On one hand, it is not permissible to add words or to fill in a gap or lacuna, on
the other hand effort should be made to give meaning to each and every word
used by the legislature. Therefore it is not the sound principle of construction.
It is incumbent on the court to avoid a construction, if reasonably permissible
on the language, which would render a part of the statute devoid of any
meaning or application- “ Rao Shiv Bahadur Singh v. State of U.P., AIR
In the interpretation of statutes the courts always presume that the legislature
inserted every part thereof for a purpose and the legislative intention is that
every part of the statute should have effect.
The legislature is deemed not to waste its words or to say anything in vain
and a construction which attributes redundancy to the legislature will not
be accepted except for compelling reasons.
While construing section 6(4) of the Bombay Land Requisition Act,1948,
which provides that ‘ the State government may requisition the premises for
the purpose of a state or any other public purpose’, the Supreme Court
rejected the argument that the words ‘ any other public purpose’ are
restricted to a public purpose which is also a purpose of the state and said: “
If the words ‘ any other public purpose’ in the statute in question have been
used only to mean a state purpose, they would become mere surplusage
(refers to allegations that are not relevant to the Cause of
Action); court should lean against such a construction as far as possible”.
c. The substance of the provision parliament would have made, although not
necessarily the precise words parliament would have used, had the error in
Bill been noticed.
Sometimes even when these conditions are satisfied, the court may find
itself inhibited from interpreting the statutory provision in accordance with
underlying intention of parliament. E.g. when the alteration in language is
too far reaching or too big or when the subject matter calls for strict
interpretation such as a penal provision.
ADDITION OF WORDS WHEN PERMISSIBLE:
a. Where the alternative lies between either supplying by implication words
which appear to have been accidentally omitted or adopting a construction
which deprives certain existing words of all meaning, it is permissible to
supply the words.
b. To avoid any part of the statute becoming meaningless.
c. To give effect to the legislative intent which is apparent from the Act read
as a whole.
d. To give effect or advance the purpose which the parliament intended to
achieve.
REJECTION OF WORDS WHEN PERMISSIBLE:
At times the intention of legislature is clear but the unskillfulness of
the draftsman in introducing certain words in the statute results in
apparent ineffectiveness of the language. Since courts strongly lean
against reducing a statute to a futility, it is permissible in such cases to
reject the surplus words to make the statute effective and workable.
