Statues

LITERAL CONSTRUCTION The task of interpretation of a statutory enactment is not a mechanical task. It is more than a mere reading of mathematical formulae because few words possess the precision of mathematical symbols. It is an attempt to discover the intent of the Legislature from the language used by it and it must always be remembered that language is at best an imperfect instrument for the expression of human thought and, as pointed out by Lord Denning, it would be idle to expect every statutory provision to be “drafted with divine prescience and perfect clarity” of Judge Learned Hand: “......it is true that the words used, even in their literal sense, are the primary and ordinarily the most reliable source of interpreting the meaning of any writing: be it a statute, a contract or anything else. But it is one of the surest indexes of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary; but to remember that statutes always have some purpose or object to accomplish, whose sympathetic and imaginative discovery is the surest guide to their meaning.” One must not adopt a strictly literal interpretation of any provision but must construe its language having regard to the object and purpose which the Legislature had in view in enacting that provision and in the context of the setting in which it occurs. One cannot and should not ignore the context and the collocation of the provisions because, as pointed out by judge Learned Hand in the most felicitous language:”....... the meaning of a sentence may be more than that of the separate words, as a melody is more than the notes, and no degree of particularity can ever obviate recourse to the setting in which all appears, and which all collectively create.” It is a well-recognised rule of construction that a statutory provision must be so construed, if possible, that absurdity and mischief may be avoided. It is now a well-settled rule of construction that where the plain literal interpretation of a statutory provision produces a manifestly absurd and unjust result which could never have been intended by the Legislature, the court may modify the language used by the Legislature or even “do some violence” to it, so as to achieve the obvious intention of the Legislature and produce a rational construction: Vide Luke vs. IRC (1963) AC 557; (1964) 54 ITR 692 (Cal). The court may also in such a case read into the statutory provision a condition which, though not expressed, is implicit as constituting the basic assumption underlying the statutory provision. The S.C. in K. P. Varghese vs. ITO (1981) 131 ITR 597 (SC), eschew literalness in the interpretation of s. 52, sub-s. (2), and tried to arrive at an interpretation which avoids the absurdity and mischief and makes the provision rational and sensible. It ultimately resulted in deletion of section 52 from the Income-tax Act, 1961. It is a sound rule of construction of a statute firmly established in England as far back as 1584 when Heydon’s case (1584) 3 Co. Rep. 7a was decided that: “....... for the sure and true interpretation of all statutes in general ....four things are to be discerned and considered: (1) what was the common law before the making of the Act, (2) what was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide, (3) what remedy the Parliament hath resolved and appointed to cure the disease of the Commonwealth and (4) the true reason of the remedy; and then the office of all the judges is always to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief, and advance the remedy“ In re Mayfair Property Company (1898) 2 Ch (CA) Lindley M.R. in 1898 found the rule “as necessary now as it was when Lord Coke reported Heydon’s case”. The rule was reaffirmed by the Earl of Halsbury in Eastman Photographic Materials Company Ltd. vs. Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade-Marks (1898) AC 571, 576 (HL) in the following words: “My Lords, it appears to me that to construe the statute now in question, it is not only legitimate but highly convenient to refer both to the former Act and to the ascertained evils to which the former Act had given rise, and to the latter Act which provided the remedy. These three things being compared, I cannot doubt the conclusion.” This rule being a rule of construction has been repeatedly applied in India in interpreting statutory provisions.