Interpretation of Statutes & Legislation

Dr. Mahesh Prasad Tandon's Interpretation of Statutes and Legislation covers the paper that quietly decides judiciary mains results - how courts read the written law. The book works through the primary rules (literal, golden, mischief and purposive construction), internal and external aids to interpretation, presumptions, the interpretation of penal, taxing, remedial and beneficial statutes, and the maxims - ejusdem generis, noscitur a sociis, expressio unius - with the Indian and English authorities behind each.

Principles of legislation and the General Clauses Act round out the syllabus coverage. The Tandon method keeps each rule tied to two or three decisive cases, making the subject genuinely revisable.

Written for the Interpretation of Statutes and Legal Method papers in LL.B. and LL.M. courses, and widely used by judicial services aspirants.

Part I - Legislation (Chapter 1): the nature and significance of legislation, supreme and subordinate legislation, statute law compared with case law and custom, and codification.

Part II - Interpretation (Chapters 2–16): The Interpretation of Statutes (literal and grammatical construction, the golden rule, the mischief rule, intention of the legislature, purposive construction, harmonious construction, casus omissus, non-obstante clauses) · Methods of Interpretation · Intrinsic Aids (preamble, headings, title, marginal notes, proviso, interpretation clause, punctuation, explanations, schedules, illustrations) · Extrinsic Aids (parliamentary history and debates, select committee and Law Commission reports, statement of objects and reasons, contemporanea expositio, dictionaries, statutes in pari materia, the General Clauses Act) · Subsidiary Rules (ejusdem generis, noscitur a sociis, reddendo singula singulis, Heydon’s case, ut res magis valeat quam pereat, generalia specialibus non derogant) · Mandatory and Directory Provisions (“may”, “shall” and “must”) · Interpretation of Taxing Statutes · Penal Statutes · Procedural Statutes · Interpretation of the Constitution (legislative entries, pith and substance, colourable legislation, doctrine of eclipse, constitutionality) · Provisos, Exceptions, Explanations and Saving Clauses · Presumptions · Repeal, Repugnancy and Retrospective Operation · Interpretation of Deeds and Wills · Treaties and International Protocols.

Part III - Precedent (Chapter 17): authoritative and persuasive precedents, ratio decidendi and obiter dicta, per incuriam, stare decisis, Article 141 and the binding force of Supreme Court decisions in India.

Part IV - Judicial Process (Chapters 18–27): the judicial process as an instrument of social ordering, characteristics of judicial legislation, judicial process and public policy, judicial versus legislative process, law and social change, professional opinion and religion, agencies of legal improvement (fiction, equity, legislation, judicial activism), common law and administrative law in contemporary India, and a substantial dictionary of judicially interpreted words and phrases — with the full text of the General Clauses Act, 1897 as an appendix.