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The most comprehensive coverage on the construction of Statutes. It includes parts of statutes,Extrinsic-Aids,Intrinsic aids, Reading down, Amendments,Repeals,codifications,Quasi-Judicial agencies,Non-obstante clause,Mandatory/Declatory provisions,Tax ,Beneficial, Criminal,Fiscal Statute's Interpretation and sub-ordinate legislations.Besides it contains the Rules of Interpretation and the Role of Judiciary.Citations are in abundance.



Monday, April 19, 2010

Parliamentary Debates:Extrinsic Material

Courts often take recourse to parliamentary material like debates in Constituent Assembly, speeches of the movers of the Bill, Reports of Committees or Commission, Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill, etc. As per traditional English view, these parliamentary material or Hansard were inadmissible as external aids, on the basis of ‘exclusionary rule’. This “exclusionary rule” was slowly given up and finally in Pepper v Hart, (1993) 1 ALLER 42 (HL), it was held that parliamentary material or Hansard may be admissible as an external aid for interpretation of a statute, subject to parliamentary privilege, under following circumstances; where (a) legislation is ambiguous or obscure or leads to an absurdity; (b) the material relied on consists of one or more statements by a minister or other promoter of the Bill, together, if necessary, with such other parliamentary material as is necessary to understand such statements and their effect; and (c) the statements relied on are clear.

Indian Courts, in early days followed the ‘exclusionary rule’ which prevailed in England and refused to admit parliamentary material or Constituent Assembly debates for the purpose of interpretation of statutory or constitutional provision (see State of Travancore- Cochin and others v Bombay Co. Ltd., AIR 1952 SC 366; Aswini Kumar Ghose and another v Arbinda Bose and another, AIR 1952 SC 369. However, in subsequent cases, the Supreme Court relaxed this ‘exclusionary rule, much before the law laid down in England in ‘Pepper’ case. Krishna Iyer J. in State of Mysore v R.V. Bidop, AIR 1973 SC 2555, quoted a passage from Crawford on Statutory Construction (page 383) in which exclusionary rule was criticized. The relevant passage is quoted below:-

“The rule of Exclusion has been criticized by jurists as artificial. The trend of academic opinion and the practice in the European system suggests that interpretation of statute being an exercise in the ascertainment of meaning, everything which is logically relevant should be admissible”

Krishna Iyer J. has observed in this case:-

“There is a strong case for whittling down the Rule of Exclusion followed in the British courts and for less apologetic reference to legislative proceedings and like materials to read the meaning of the words of a statute.” (para 5)

In this regard, Bhagwati J. (as he then was) in Fagu Shaw etc. v The State of West Bengal, AIR 1974 SC 613 has stated:

“Since the purpose of interpretation is to ascertain the real meaning of a constitutional provision, it is evident that nothing that is logically relevant to this process should be excluded from consideration. It was at one time thought that the speeches made by the members of the Constituent Assembly in the course of the debates of the Draft Constitution were wholly inadmissible as extraneous aids to the interpretation of a constitutional provision, but of late there has been a shift in this position and following the recent trends in juristic thought in some of the Western countries and the United States, the rule of exclusion rigidly followed in Anglo American jurisprudence has been considerably diluted… We may therefore legitimately refer to the Constituent Assembly debates for the purpose of ascertaining what was the object which the Constitution makers had in view and what was the purpose which they intended to achieve when they enacted cls (4) and (7) in their present form.” (para 45)

Again in R.S. Nayak v A.R. Antulay (Supra), the Supreme Court observed in this regard:

“…Therefore, it can be confidently said that the exclusionary rule is flickering in its dying embers in its native land of birth and has been given a decent burial by this Court.” (para 34)

The Supreme Court in a numbers of cases referred to debates in the Constituent Assembly for interpretation of Constitutional provisions. Recently, the Supreme Court in S.R. Chaudhuri v State of Punjab and others, (2001) 7 SCC 126 has stated that it is a settled position that debates in the Constituent Assembly may be relied upon as an aid to interpret a Constitutional provision because it is the function of the Court to find out the intention of the framers of the Constitution. (para 33)

But as far as speeches in Parliament are concerned, a distinction is made between speeches of the mover of the Bill and speeches of other Members. Regarding speeches made by the Members of the Parliament at the time of consideration of a Bill, it has been held that they are not admissible as extrinsic aids to the interpretation of the statutory provision. (see - K.S. Paripoornan v State of Kerala and others, AIR 1995 SC 1012). However, speeches made by the mover of the Bill or Minister may be referred to for the purpose of finding out the object intended to be achieved by the Bill (see K.S. Paripoornan’s case ( supra). J. S. Verma J (as he then was) in R.Y. Prabhoo (Dr.) v. P.K. Kunte, (1995) 7 SCALE 1 made extensive reference to the speech of the then Law Minister Shri A.K. Sen for construing the word ‘his’ occurring in sub-section (3) of section 123 of the Representation of People Act 1951.

Similarly, Supreme Court in P.V. Narsimha Rao v State, AIR 1998 SC 2120 agreeing with the view taken in Pepper v Hart (Supra) has observed:

“It would thus be seen that as per the decisions of this Court, the statement of the Minister who had moved the Bill in Parliament can be looked at to ascertain mischief sought to be remedied by the legislation and the object and purpose for which the legislation is enacted. The statement of the Minister who had moved the Bill in Parliament is not taken into account for the purpose of interpreting the provision of the enactment.” (Para 77).

The Supreme Court in Sushila Rani v CIT and another, (2002) 2 SCC 697 referred to the speech of the Minister to find out the object of ‘Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme 1998’.

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Exclusionary Rule

Next Statement of Objects and Reasons

Exclusionary Rule and Enlisting External Aids

Exclusionary Rule and Enlisting External Aids

Statutory interpretation is the process of interpreting and applying legislation. Some amount of interpretation is always necessary when case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and straightforward meaning. But in most cases, there is some ambiguity or vagueness in the words of the statute that must be resolved by the judge. To find the meanings of statutes, judges use various tools and methods of statutory interpretation, including traditional canons of statutory interpretation, legislative history, and purpose. In common law jurisdictions, the judiciary may apply rules of statutory interpretation to legislation enacted by the legislature or to delegated legislation such as administrative agency regulations. Parliamentary Debate is an academic debate event. The prime question that is being looked into is if the reference to the extrinsic Material is permissible for the sake of statutory interpretation and for the removal of the doubts and the obscurity. read more

Generally speaking the usage of Parliamentary debates, as a material to be relied upon is fairly debatable one. The general exclusionary rule prevails. But the parliamentary debates and proceedings can be allowed only as an aid to interpretation. The major argument against these kinds of references was on account of the fact that these materials are fairly lengthy and bulky and would consume lot of time in case a question in point has to be resolved. The speeches made by the Minister cannot deemed to have any legislative authority and are meant to make the other members see the point and are, therefore, persuasive in nature. Added to this is the fact that the entire debates may not be of relevance to answer the point in question. read more

However, the practice is very uniform all over the globe and that is referring to these debates when the construction of any provision leads to absurdity or is ambiguous.In Pepper v Hart [1993] 3 WLR 1032,[1993] ALL ER, 42, HL(E), the House of Lords had done away with the ‘exclusionary Rule’ according to which the Debates could not be referred to for seeking guidance in the matter of interpretation of the piece of legislation. The rule has been replaced by the ‘inclusionary Rule’ as per which the use of Hansard can be made in certain circumstances. In Pepper v Hart the Court has prescribed a rule as to which speeches are to be admissible as an aid to interpretation.To be precise it was the statement of the Minister that clearly stated the mischief at which the legislation in point is aimed at:

" ..Reference to Parliamentary material should be permitted as an aid to construction of legislation which is ambiguous or obscure or literal meaning of which leads to an ambiguity. Even in such cases the material should only be ppermitted where such material clearly discloses the mischief aimed at or the legislative intention lying behind the ambiguous or obscure words….[1]read more

List of Extrinsic Aids

The following can be considered as extrinsic aids:

(1) Parliamentary material
a)Debates
b)Statement of Objects and Reasons
c) Reports of Parliamentary Committees and Commissions
(2) Reference to other statutes
3) Usages and Practice
(4) Dictionaries
(5) Foreign Decisions
(6) Historical facts and surrounding circumstances
(7)Later development International convention
(8)Other

These are discussed in Details in the subsequent chapters.


[1] Per LORD BROWNE-WILKINSON at 1056 B-C

What are Extrinsic Aids

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What are Extrinsic Aids

What are Extrinsic Aids?

Statutory interpretation is the process of interpreting and applying legislation. Some amount of interpretation is always necessary when case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and straightforward meaning. But in most cases, there is some ambiguity or vagueness in the words of the statute that must be resolved by the judge. To find the meanings of statutes, judges use various tools and methods of statutory interpretation, including traditional canons of statutory interpretation, legislative history, and purpose. In common law jurisdictions, the judiciary may apply rules of statutory interpretation to legislation enacted by the legislature or to delegated legislation such as administrative agency regulations.

Acceptance of Extrinsic Aids as an aid to Interpretation

The Supreme Court has accepted the necessity of external aids in interpretation of statutory provision. O.Chennappa Reddy J. in B. Prabhakar Rao and others v State of A.P. and others , AIR 1986 SC 120 has observed :

“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. This is now a well settled principle of modern statutory construction.” (para 7)

Recently, in District Mining Officer and others v Tata Iron & Steel Co. and another , (2001) 7 SCC 358, Supreme Court has observed:

“It is also a cardinal principle of construction that external aids are brought in by widening the concept of context as including not only other enacting provisions of the same statute, but its preamble, the existing state of law, other statutes in pari materia and the mischief which the statute was intended to remedy.” (para 18)

So far as admissibility and utility of these external aids are concerned, law is almost settled in our country now. The Supreme Court in K.P. Varghese v Income Tax Officer Ernakulam, AIR 1981 SC 1922 has stated that interpretation of statute being an exercise in the ascertainment of meaning, everything which is logically relevant should be admissible.

This is the general position in Indian Courts but the practice is uniform all over the world.The external aids are resorted to in case there is ambiguity or obscurity in the process of Construction of Statute.

Why extrinsic Aids

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Why Extrinsic Aids


Supreme Court Of India in Grasim Industries Ltd. v Collector of Customs, Bombay, (2002)4 SCC 297 has followed the same principle and observed:

“Where the words are clear and there is no obscurity, and there is no ambiguity and the intention of the legislature is clearly conveyed, there is no scope for court to take upon itself the task of amending or altering the statutory provisions.” (para 10)

For the purpose of construction or interpretation, the court obviously has to take recourse to various internal and external aids. “Internal aids” mean those materials that are available in the statute itself, though they may not be part of enactment.

Intenal/Intrinsic Aids

These internal aids include, long title, preamble, headings, marginal notes, illustrations, punctuation, proviso, schedule, transitory provisions, etc. and have been discussed in chapter-3 as above.

Extrinsic Aids

When internal aids are not adequate, court has to take recourse to external aids. It may be parliamentary material, historical background, reports of a committee or a commission, official statement, dictionary meanings, foreign decisions, etc. These are referred to as Extrinsic Aids.

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