GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION
Salmond directed that, “Interpretation or construction is the process by
which the Court’s seek to ascertain the meaning of the legislature through
the medium of authoritative forms in which it is expressed.”
Interpretation of a law is very important as what one writes can be
converted into various meanings and various judgments. A judge should
ask himself the question: If the makers of the Act had themselves come
across this luck in the texture of it, how would they have straight ended
it out? He must then do as they would have done. A judge must not alter
the material of which it is woven, but he can and should iron out the
creases.
The main and most important objective of interpretation is to see the
intention that has been merely expressed by the words. The words of the
statute are to be interpreted so as to ascertain the mind of legislature from
natural and grammatical meaning of the words which it has used.
Necessity of interpretation arises only when the language of the statute is
ambiguous, not clear or where two views are possible.
Some important points to be taken care of in the context of Interpreting
the Statutes:
Intention of the legislature.
The statute must be read as a whole.
The statute must be construed so as to make it effective and
workable.
If the meaning is plain, the effect must be given to it irrespective of
the consequences.
The process of construction combines both literal and purposive
approaches.
General Principles of Interpretation
There are certain general principles of interpretation which have been
applied by a Court from time to time. They are:
The Literal or Grammatical Interpretation.
The Mischief Rule.
The Golden Rule.
Harmonious Construction.
Construction ex visceribus actus [The Statute must be read as a
whole].
Construction ut res magis valeat quam pareat [where alternative
constructions are possible, the court must give effect to the one
which is responsible for the smooth working of the system for
which the statute is enacted].
Identical expressions to have same meaning.
Construction noscitur a sociis [the meaning of a word is to be judged
by the company it keeps].
Construction ejusdem generis [“of the same kind or nature”].
Construction expressio unius est exclusion alterius [express mention of
one thing implies the exclusion of another].
Construction contemporanea expositio est fortissimo in lege [the best
exposition of a statute or any other document is that which is
received from a contemporary authority].
THE LITERAL OR GRAMMATICAL RULE OF
INTERPRETATION
The first principle of interpretation.
Meaning: The words of an enactment are to be given their ordinary
and natural meaning.
If such meaning is clear and unambiguous, effect should be given
to a provision of a statute whatever may be the consequences.
The basis of the principle is that the object of all interpretations
being to know what the legislature intended, whatever was the
intention of the legislature has been expressed by it through its
words which are to be interpreted according to the rules of
grammar.
The safest rule of interpretation, as the intent of the legislature can
be deduced only from the language through which it has expressed
itself.
In construing Statutes, the cardinal rule is to construe its provisions
literally and grammatically giving the words their ordinary and
natural meaning.
This rule is also known as the Plain meaning rule.
The words in an enactment have their own natural effect and the
construction of an act depends on its wording.
There should be no additions or substitution of words in the
construction of statutes and in its interpretation.
The primary rule is to interpret words as they are.
It should be taken into note that the rule can be applied only when
the meanings of the words are clear i.e. words should be simple so
that the language is plain and only one meaning can be derived out
of the statute.
To avoid ambiguity, legislatures often include
“definitions/interpretation” clause within a statute, which
explicitly define the most important terms used in that statute. But
some statutes omit a definitions section entirely, or (more
commonly) fail to define a particular term. The plain meaning rule
attempts to guide courts faced with litigation that turns on the
meaning of a term not defined by the statute, or on that of a word
found within a definition itself.
Proponents of the plain meaning rule claim that it prevents courts
from taking sides in legislative or political issues. They also point
out that ordinary people and lawyers do not have extensive access
to secondary sources.
One criticism of the rule is that it rests on the erroneous assumption
that words have a fixed meaning. In fact, words are imprecise,
leading justices to impose their own prejudices to determine the
meaning of a statute. However, since little else is offered as an
alternative discretion-confining theory, plain meaning survives.
Crawford v. Spooner; 1846.
Saloman v. Saloman; 1897.
Maqbool Hussain v. State of Bombay; AIR 1953 SC 325.
S.A. Venkataraman v. UOI; AIR 1954 SC 375.
M/s. Patel Bros. v. State of Assam & ors.; AIR 2017 SC 383.
CBI Bank Securities and Fraud Cell v. Ramesh Gelli & ors.; AIR 2016
SC 1063.
![ Harmonious Construction.
Construction ex visceribus actus [The Statute must be read as a
whole].
Construction ut res](https://screenshots.scribd.com/Scribd/252_100_85/356/529007164/2.jpeg)
