External Aids in Interpretation :
Apart from the intrinsic aids, such as preamble and purview of the Act, the Court can consider resources outside the Act, called the extrinsic aids, in interpreting and finding out the purposes of the Act. Where the words of an Act are clear and unambiguous, no resource to extrinsic matter, even if it consists of the sources of the codification, is permissible. But where it is not so, the Court can consider, apart from the intrinsic aids, such as preamble and the purview of the Act, both with the prior events leading up to the introduction of the Bill, out of the which the Act has emerged, and subsequent events from the time of its introduction until its final enactment like the legislation, history of the Bill, Select Committee reports.
Parliamentary History
The Supreme Court, enunciated the rule of exclusion of Parliamentary history in the way it is enunciated by English Courts, but on many occasions, the Court used this aid in resolving questions of construction. The Court has now veered to the view that legislative history within circumspect limits may be consulted by Courts in resolving ambiguities.
It has already been noticed that the Court is entitled to take into account “such external or historical facts as may
be necessary to understand the subject-matter of the statute”, or to have regard to “the surrounding circumstances” which existed at the time of passing of the statute. Like any other external aid, the inferences from historical facts and surrounding circumstances must give way to the clear language employed in the enactment itself.
Reference to Reports of Committees
The report of a Select Committee or other Committee on whose report an enactment is based, can be looked into “so as to see the background against which the legislation was enacted, the fact cannot be ignored that Parliament may, and often does, decide to do something different to cure the mischief. So we should not be unduly influenced by the Report (Letang v. Cooper (1964) 2 All. E.R. 929; see also Assam Railways & Trading Co. Ltd. v. I.R.C. (1935) A.C. 445).
When Parliament has enacted a statute as recommended by the Report of a Committee and there is ambiguity or uncertainty in any provision of the statute, the Court may have regard to the report of the Committee for ascertaining the intention behind the provision (Davis v. Johnson (1978) 1 All. E.R. 1132. But where the words used are plain and clear, no intention other than what the words convey can be imported in order to avoid anomalies.
Present trends in the European Economic Community Countries and the European Court, however, is to interpret treaties, conventions, statutes, etc. by reference to travaux preparatories, that is, all preparatory records such as reports and other historical material.
Social, Political and Economic Developments and Scientific Invention
Reference to other Statutes
It has already been stated that a statute must be read as a whole as words are to be understood in their context. Extension of this rule of context, permits reference to other statutes in pari materia, i.e. statutes dealing with the same subject matter or forming part of the same system. Viscount Simonds conceived it to be a right and duty to construe every word of a statute in its context and he used the word in its widest sense including other statutes in pari materia.
The meaning of the phrase ‘pari materia’ has been explained in an American case in the following words: “Statutes are in pari materia which relate to the same person or thing, or to the same class of persons or things. The word par must not be confounded with the words simlis. It is used in opposition to it intimating not likeness merely, but identity. It is a phrase applicable to public statutes or general laws made at different times and in reference to the same subject. When the two pieces of legislation are of differing scopes, it cannot be said that they are in pari materia.
It is a well accepted legislative practice to incorporate by reference, if the legislature so chooses, the provisions of some other Act in so far as they are relevant for the purposes of and in furtherance of the scheme and subjects of the Act.
Words in a later enactment cannot ordinarily be construed with reference to the meaning given to those or similar words in an earlier statute. But the later law is entitled to weight when it comes to the problem of construction.
Generally speaking, a subsequent Act of a legislature affords no useful guide to the meaning of another Act which comes into existence before the later one was ever framed. Under special circumstances the law does, however, admit of a subsequent Act to be resorted to for this purpose but the conditions, under which the later Act may be resorted to for the interpretation of the earlier Act are strict. Both must be laws on the same subject and the part of the earlier Act which is sought to be construed must be ambiguous and capable of different meanings.
Although a repealed statute has to be considered, as if it had never existed, this does not prevent the Court from looking at the repealed Act in pari materia on a question of construction.
The regulations themselves cannot alter or vary the meaning of the words of a statute, but they may be looked at as being an interpretation placed by the appropriate Governent department on the words of the statute. Though the regulations cannot control construction of the Act, yet they may be looked at, to assist in the interpretation of the Act and may be referred to as working out in detail the provisions of the Act consistently with their terms.
Dictionaries
When a word is not defined in the Act itself, it is permissible to refer to dictionaries to find out the general sense in which that word is understood in common parlance. However, in selecting one out of the various meanings of the word, regard must always be had to the context as it is a fundamental rule that “the meaning of words and expressions used in an Act must take their colour from the context in which they appear”. Therefore, when the context makes the meaning of a word quite clear, it becomes unnecessary to search for and select a particular meaning out of the diverse meanings a word is capable of, according to lexicographers”. As stated by Krishna Aiyar, J. “Dictionaries are not dictators of statutory construction where the benignant mood of a law, and more emphatically the definition clause furnish a different denotation”. Further, words and expressions at times have a ‘technical’ or a ‘legal meaning’ and in that case, they are understood in that sense. Again, judicial decisions expounding the meaning of words in construing statutes in pari materia will have more weight than the meaning furnished by dictionaries.
Use of Foreign Decisions
Use of foreign decisions of countries following the same system of jurisprudence as ours and rendered on statutes in pari materia has been permitted by practice in Indian Courts. The assistance of such decisions is subject to the qualification that prime importance is always to be given to the language of the relevant Indian Statute, the circumstances and the setting in which it is enacted and the Indian conditions where it is to be applied.