External aids used for interpretation of statute

Vande Matram! Interpretation of Statute is very important skill which every law professional must possess. Hence it is incorporated in the degree course of law. Let’s discuss about external aids used to interpret a statute.

External aids used for interpretation of statute:

Other than the internal aid to interpretation which are part of a statute itself there are other aids which are not part of the statute. These are known as external aid to interpretation. The court can consider recourse outside the Act. Recourse to external aid is justified only to well-recognized limits.

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 internal aids, the prior events leading up to the introduction of the Bill, and subsequent events from the time of its introduction until its final enactment like the legislation, history of the Bill, Select Committee reports, etc.

The history of legislation, the enactments which are repealed, the parliamentary debates, dictionary commentaries etc. are the external aids to construction. It is important to point out here that the legislature adopts the device of making a statute by “reference” and by “incorporation”. When the statute is incorporated in another statue by the legislature, the incorporated statute or statute referred to therein is external aid for interpreting the statute in question.

There has been a controversy in India regarding the use of parliamentary debates for interpreting the Constitution. It is now settled that the court can always refer to the debates in the legislature while interpreting the statute to know the intention if there is a doubt about the provision. More often than not, a provision is introduced in the Bill and after some debate either it is altered or modified or amended before finally it receives the assent of the President.

Where the Legislature has not chosen to define the expression the court of law have, therefore, to fall back upon other aids for finding the intention of the Legislature; for example by reference to the context and object and purpose of the legislative measure in question. The court may further have resort to dictionaries and judicial interpretation of this award as used in other statutes; but it cannot be denied that these methods are not as satisfactory as a precise and clear legislative definition in the statute itself.

Judgments:

B. Prabhakar Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh 1985 Suppl (2) SCR 573

In B. Prabhakar Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh, the observations are:- "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. Thus 'Enacting History' is relevant: "The enacting history of an Act is the surrounding corpus of public knowledge relative to its introduction into Parliament as a Bill, and subsequent progress through, and ultimate passing by, Parliament. In particular it is the extrinsic material assumed to be within the contemplation of Parliament when it passed the Act." Again "In the period immediately following its enactment, the history of how enactment is regarded in the light of development from time to time."

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