Parliamentary Materials as an

External Aids to Construction

Prof. (Dr.) S. P. Srivastava
Department of Law and Governance
CUSB, Gaya
Background
In B. Prabhakar Rao v. State of A. P., J. Chenappa Reddy
said, “ Where internal aids are not forthcoming we can
always have recourse to external aids to discover the object
of the legislation. External aids are not ruled
out………………”
In District Mining Officer v. Tata Iron and & Steel, Court
said, “External aids are brought in by widening concept of
context as including not only the other enacting
provisions of the same statute but its preamble,the existing
state of law, and the other statute in pari materia and the
mischief which the statute was intended to remedy.
Continued:
In K. P. Verghesse v. Income Tax Officer Ernakulam,
the Supreme Court said, “ Interpretation of statute
being an exercise in the ascertainment of meaning,
everything which is logically relevant should be
admissible.
Parliamentary Materials
Debates
Statement of objects and Reasons
Report of Parliamentary Committees and
Commissions.
Peter Hogg observation on legislative
History
It covers:
The report of the royal commission or law reform
commission or parliamentary committee
recommending for a statute.
 A Govt. policy paper.
A Report or study produced outside government.
Earlier version of statute.
Statement by ministers or movers of the bill.
Speeches in the parliament when the bill is passed.
Debates
It includes:
Constituent Assembly Debates
Speeches of the movers of the bill
Traditional View- As per old English law
parliamentary materials or Hansard were inadmissible
as external aids on the basis of exclusionary rule.
This exclusionary rule was slowly given up.
Pepper V. Hart (HL) New Trend
It was held that hansard may be admissible as external
aid for interpretation of statute subject to
parliamentary privilege under following circumstance:
(a).legislation is ambiguous or obscure or absurd;
(b)the material relied on consists of one or more
statements by the ministers or other promoter of the
bill; C the statement relied on are clear.
Indian Practice
Earlier the Indian Court followed the exclusionary
rule.
However, the supreme court later relaxed the critrion
in State of Mysore v. R.V. Biop, AIR 1973 SC 2555,
Justice krishna Iyer quoted from Crawford on
Statutory Construction. In This case he said there is
strong case for whittling down the rule of exclusion
being followed so far.
Continued:
In Fagu shaw v. The state of West Bengal J bhagwati
said, Since the purpose of interpretation is to ascertain
the real meaning of a constitutional provision……….we
may therefore legitimately refer the CAD.
In RS Nayak v. AR Antulay, exclusionary rule is
flickering in its dyingembers in its native land of both
and has been given a decent burial by the court.
Application in India
AboutCAD Use
SR Chaudhari V. State of Punjab, The supreme court
said that statement of CAD may be relied upon as an
aid to construction because the statement of the
makers of constitution shall indicate intention of the
legislature.
B. Banerjee v. Anita Pan
Continued:
Speeches in Parliament:
A distinction is made between speeches of movers of
the bill and other members.(KS paripoornnan v. State
of Kerala)
PV Prabhoo v.PK Kunte
PV. Narsimha Rao v.State
Statement of Objects and Reasons
Devdoss (Dead ) by L Rs. v.Veera Makali Amman Koil-
it is permissible torefer to it for understanding the
background, the antecedent state of affairs, the
surrounding circumstances in relation toa statute and
evil which the statute sought to remedy.
vBut it cannot be used to ascertain the true meaning
and effect of the substantive provision of the statute.
Reports of Parliamentary Committee and
commissions
In Haldiram Bhujiawal and anrs v. Anand Kumar
Deepak Kumar the supreme court recourse to the
report of special committee of 1930 for construing the
provisions of section 69 of the partnership Act.