Intent: The Object of Interpretation

Words and phrases are symbols that stimulate mental references to referents. The object of interpreting a statute is to ascertain the intention of the Legislature enacting it. (See Institute of Chartered Accountants of India v. M/s Price Waterhouse and Anr. (AIR 1998 SC 74). 
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 consequence, 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. ASHOKA KUMAR THAKUR v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS [2008] INSC 614 (10 April 2008)The principles of statutory interpretation as a subject for consideration by a law-reforming body present special difficulties. It is manifest at the outset that it is not a topic where there are any clear-cut defects for which, once diagnosed, legislative intervention can promise a dramatic cure. Sir Carleton Allen, after avery full discussion of the problems of statutory interpretation, wrote that although

"it cannot be pretended that the principles of statutory interpretation form the most stable, consistent, or logically satisfying part of our jurisprudence. . . we are driven, in the end, to the unsatisfying conclusion that the whole matter ultimately turns on impalpable and indefinable elements of judicial spirit or attitude." 

Low in rhe Making, 7th ed., 1964, at pp. 526 and 529. ]

 Justice Frankfurter said:

 "Though my business throughout most of my professional life has been with statutes, I come to you empty-handed. I bring no answers. I suspect the answers to the problems of an art are in its exercise." 

["Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes,” (1947) 2 The Record of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York 213 at pp. 216-7 ]

 And in a rather similar vein an English judge has said :

"The duty of the Courts is to ascertain and give effect to the will of Parliament as expressed in its enactments. In the performance of this duty the Judges do not act as computers into which are fed the statutes and the rules for the construction of statutes and from whom issue forth the mathematically correct answer. The interpretation of statutes is a craft as much as a science and the judges, as craftsmen, select and apply the appropriate rules as the tools of their trade. They are not legislators, but finishers, refiners and polishers of legislation which comes to them in a state requiring varying degrees of further processing." 

Per Donaldson J. in Corocrafi Ltd. v. Pan American Airways Inc. [I9681 3 W.L.R. 714 at 732; the actual decision was reversed on appeal, [1968] 3 W.L.R. 1273 (C.A.).]