PETITIONER: S. NARAYANASWAMI Vs. RESPONDENT: G. PANNERSELVAM & ORS. DATE OF JUDGMENT12/04/1972 BENCH: BEG, M. HAMEEDULLAH BENCH: BEG, M. HAMEEDULLAH SIKRI, S.M. (CJ) GROVER, A.N. RAY, A.N. PALEKAR, D.G. CITATION: 1972 AIR 2284 1973 SCR (1) 172 1972 SCC (3) 713 CITATOR INFO : E 1973 SC 38 (11,19) F 1977 SC2328 (11) R 1978 SC 897 (7) RF 1980 SC1896 (103) R 1981 SC1274 (11) R 1992 SC 96 (14) ACT: Constitution of India 1950, Arts. 171 to 173 and Representation of the People Act (43 of 1951) s. 6-Candidate from Graduates' constituency to Legislative Council-If should be a graduate. HEADNOTE: The respondent challenged the appellant selection to the Madras Legislative, Council from the Madras District Graduates' Constituency on the grounds, (1) that, the purpose of Art. 171 of the Constitution was to confer a right of functional representation upon persons possessing certain educational or other qualifications so that the appellant who was not a graduate could not be elected to the Legislative Council from the Graduates' Constituency; (2) that, it would be absurd and destructive of the concept of representation that an individual, who did not possess the essential or basic qualification of the electors, should be their representative, and (3), that, the Constitution, being an organic instrument, must be interpreted in a broad and liberal manner so as to give effect to the underlying principles and purposes of the system of representation sought to be embodied in it. The High Court set aside the election. Allowing the appeal to this Court, HELD: (1) (a) Graduates are not an occupational or vocational group, but merely a body of persons with particular educational qualifications. It would, therefore, not be correct to describe the additional representation sought to be given to them in the Legislative Council as an attempt to introduce functional or vocational representation. [181B] (b) The qualifications of the elector constituting the electorate, and of those who can represent each electorate, contemplated by the Constitution and supplemented by Parliament, are separately set out for each House. As regards the Legislative Council, the qualifications for the four electorates are indicated in Art. 171 (3) (a), (b), (c) and (d). The plain and ordinary meaning of the term "electorate is that it is the body of persons who elect. It does not take in the extended notion of a body of persons electing representatives from amongst themselves. It does not impose a requirement that the person to be chosen must also be a member of the electorate. [177D-F] (c) The qualifications of candidates for seats in the Council are given in s. 6 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. While a member of the Legislative Assembly should also be an elector in the constituency from which he stands, the member of the Legislative Council is not so required to be a member of the electorate. All that is required is that the person to be chosen as a member of the Legislative Council should be an elector for an Assembly constituency in the State to whose Legislative Council he is chosen. [179E] (d) Whatever may have been the opinions of the Constitution makes or their advisors it is not possible to say, on a perusal of Art. 171, that the Second Chamber found here were meant to provide for functional 173 or vocational representation. AR that can be inferred is that additional representation or weightage was given to persons possessing special types of knowledge and experience by enabling them to elect their special representatives. The concept of such representation does not carry with it the further notion that, the representative must also possess the very qualifications of those he represents. The High Court erroneously travelled outside the four corners of the statutory provisions when there was no ambiguity at all in the language, and by resorting to a presumed legislative intent, it added a qualification to those expressly laid down in the Constitution and other statutory provisions. [1 80F] Davies Jankins & Co. v. Davies, 1967 (2) W.L.R. p. 1139 (a_) 1156, inferred to. 2(a) Article 171 is designed only to give a right to choose their representatives to those who have certain types of presumably valuable knowledge and education. If the presumption of their better competence to elect a suitable representative is there, it would be for the members of such a constituency themselves to decide whether a person who stands for election from their constituency possesses the right type of knowledge-, experience and wisdom. The Constitution makers, acting on such a presumption, may have intentionally left the educational qualifications of candidate for election from the Graduates Constituency unspecified. [181C] (b) It could not possibly be said that the question to be dealt with was not known to the legislators. The provisions of law show that the qualifications of the electors as well as of those to be elected were matters to which the attention of the law makers, both in the Constituent Assem- bly and in Parliament, was specifically directed. Hence, the omission must have been deliberate. [181G] R. v. Cleworth, (1864) 4 BSS 927 and Craies on Statute Law6th Edn. 1963 72, referred to. (c) The legislative history of the Article also shows that the omission by the Constitution makers or by Parliament, to prescribe graduation as a qualification of the candidate from the Graduates' constituency, was deliberate. The provisions of the Government of India (Provincial Legislative Assemblies) Order, 1936, prescribing the qualifications of persons to be chosen from special constituencies set up for representation in the Legislative Councils under the Government of India Act, 1935, indicate that it was invariably expressly provided where it was so intended, that a necessary qualification of a candidate for a seat was that he should be entitled to vote for the choice of a member to fill it. Such a qualification was not left to mere implication. [181H-182E] (3) It is true that a constitution should be interpreted in a broad and generous spirit, but the rule of "plain meaning" or "literal" interpretation could not altogether be abandoned. The object of interpretation is to discover the intention of the law makers, and this object can obviously be best achieved by first looking at the language used in the relevant provisions. A logical corollary of the rule of literal interpretation is that a statute may not be extended to meet a case for which provision has clearly and undoubtedly not been made; and an application of this rule necessarily involves that addition to, or modification of, words used in statutory provisions is not generally permissible. Courts may depart from this rule only to avoid a patent absurdity. [175D] Sri Ram Narain Medhi & Ors. v. The State of Bombay, A.I.R. 1959 S.C. 459; British India General Insurance Co. Ltd. v.Captain 174 itbar Singh & Ors., [1960] 1 S.C.R. 168; R. C. Jacob v. Union of India, [1963] 3 S.C.R. 800; State of Madhya Pradesh v. M/s. Azad Bharat Finance Co. & Anr. A.I.R. 1967 S.C. 276; Hira Devi v. District Board, Shabiahanpur, A.I.R. 1952 S.C. 362 & 365, referred to. From the language as well as the legislative history of Arts. 171 and 173 of the Constitution and s. 6 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, it could be presumed that the omission of the qualification that the representative of graduate should also be a graduate was deliberate. By presuming such an intention of the law makers, no absurdity results. By adding 'deemed to be necessary' or 'implied' qualification of a representative of the graduates, which the Constitution makers or Parliament could easily have imposed, the Court would be invading the legislative sphere. [183F] JUDGMENT:
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: C.A. No. 189 of 1971.
Appeal under Section 116-A of the Representation of the
People Act, 1951 from the judgment and order dated January
8, 1971 of the Madras High Court in Election Petition No. 1
of 1970.
V. P. Raman and Vineet Kumar, for the appellant.
Jagdish Swarup, Socilitor-General of India, B. D. Sharma and
S. P. Nayar, for the Election Commission of India.
B. Sen and Sobhag Mal Jain, for the Supreme Court Bar
Association.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
Beg, J. This is an appeal under Section 116-A of the Repre-
sentation of People Act, 1951. The appellant’s election,
held on 11-4-1970, to the Madras Legislative Council from
the Madras District Graduates’ Constituency was set aside by
a learned Judge of the Madras High Court who decided all the
issues except one in favour of the appellant. The only
issue decided against the appellant, which is now before us,
was framed as follows :
“Whether the first Respondent was not
qualified to stand for election to the
Graduates Constituency on all or any of the
grounds set out by the petitioner in paragraph
7 to 9 of the election Petition” ?
Paragraphs 7 to 9 of the election petition against the
appellant are lengthy, prolix, and argumentative. The case
and the contentions of the Respondent G. Panneerselvam, the
petitioner before the High Court, which were accepted by the
High Court, may be summarised as follows
Firstly, the whole purpose of Article 171 of the
Constitution was to confer a right of “functional
representation” upon persons possessing certain educational
or other qualifications so that the Appellant Narayanaswami,
who had only passed the High School Leaving Examination and
was not a Graduate, could not be elected
175
at all to the Legislative Council from the Graduates’
Constituency; secondly, it would be absurd and destructive
of the very concept of representation of especially
qualified persons that an individual who does not possess
the essential or basic qualification of the electors should
be a representative of those who are to be represented
because of this special qualification of theirs; and,
thirdly, the Constitution, being an organic instrument for
the governance of the land, must be interpreted in a
particularly broad and liberal manner so as to give effect
to the underlying principles and purposes of the system of
representation sought to be set up by it and not in such a
way as to defeat them. Hence, the educational qualification
of the electors should be read into the system of represen-
tation set up by the Constitution for Legislative, Councils
as a necessary qualification of candidates in such
constituencies.
Authorities are certainly not wanting which indicate that
Courts should interpret in a broad and generous spirit the
document which contains the fundamental law of the land or
the basic principles of its Government. Nevertheless, the
rule of “plain meaning or “literal” interpretation,
described in Maxwell’s Interpretation of Statutes as “the
primary rule”, could not be altogether abandoned today in
interpreting any document. Indeed, we find Lord Evershed,
M.R., saying: “The length and detail of modern legislation,
has undoubtedly reinforced the claim of literal construction
as the only safe rule”. (See : Maxwell on “Interpretation of
Statutes” 12th Edition p. 28). It may be that the great
mass of modem legislation, a large part of which consists of
statutory rules, makes some departure from the literal rule
of interpretation more easily justifiable today than it was
in the past, But, the object of interpretation and of
“construction” (which may be broader than “interpretation”)
is to discover the intention of the law makers in every case
(See: Crawford on “Statutory Construction” 1940 Ed. para
157, p. 240-242). This object can, obviously, be best
achieved by first looking at the language used in the
relevant provisions. Other methods of extracting the
meaning can be resorted to only if the language used is
contradictory, ambiguous, or leads really to absurd results.
This is an elementary and basic rule of interpretation as
well as of construction-processes which, from the point of
view of principles applied, coalesce and converge towards
the common purpose of both which is to get at the real sense
and meaning, so far as it may be reasonably possible to do
this, of what is found laid down. The provisions whose
meaning is under consideration have, therefore, to he
examined before applying any method of construction at all.
To these provisions we may now turn.
Article 168 of our Constitution shows that the State Legis-
latures in nine States in India, including Madras, were to
consist of two Houses : the Legislative Assembly and the
Legislative, Coun-
176
cil. Article 170 lays down that the Legislative Assembly of
each State “shall consist of members chosen by direct
election from territorial constituencies in the State, in
such a manner as the Parliament may by law determine”.
After that, comes Article 171 which may be reproduced in
toto here:
“1.71(1) The total number of members in the Legislative
Council of a State having such a Council shall not exceed
one third of the total number of members in the Legislative
Assembly of that State,:
Provided that the total number of members in the Legislative
Council of a State shall in no case be less than forty.
(2) Until Parliament by law otherwise provides, the
composition of the Legislative Council of a State shall be
as provided in clause (3).
(3) of the total number of members of the Legislative
Council of a State-
(a) as nearly as may be, one-third shall be elected by
electorates consisting of members of municipalities,
district boards and such other local authorities in the
State as Parliament may by law specify;
(b) as nearly as may be, one-twelfth shalt be elected by
electorates consisting of persons residing in the State who
have been for at least three years graduates of any
university in the territory of India or have been for at
least three years in possession of qualifications prescribed
by or under any-law made by Parliament as equivalent to that
of a graduate of any such university;
(c) as nearly as may be. one-twelfth shall be, elected by
electorates consisting of persons who have been for at least
three years engaged in teaching in such educational
institutions within the State, not lower in standard than
that of a secondary school, as may be prescribed by or under
any law made by Parliament;
(d) as nearly as may be, one-third shall be elected by the
members of the Legislative Assembly of the State from
amongst persons who are not members of the Assembly.
(e) the remainder shall be nominated by the Governor in
accordance with the provisions of clause
(5). (4) The members to be elected under sub-clauses(a), (b)
and (c) of clause (3) shall be chosen in such territorial
constituencies as may be prescribed by or under any law made
by Parliament,, and the elections under
177
the said sub-clauses and under sub-clause (d) of the said
clause shall be held in accordance with the system of pro-
portional representation by means of the single transferable
vote.
(5) The members to be nominated by the Governor under sub-
clause (2) of clause (3) shall consist of persons having
special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such
matters as the following namely:-
Literature, Science, Art. cooperative movement and social
service.”
The term “electorate”, used in Article 171(3) (a)(b) & (c)
has neither been defined by the Constitution nor in any
enactment by Parliament. Sec. 2(1)(e) of the Representation
of People Act 43 of 1951, however, says :
” ‘elector,’ in relation to a constituency
means a person whose name is entered in the
electoral roll of that constituency for the
time being in force and who is not subject to
any of the disqualifications mentioned in Sec.
16 of the Representation of the People Act,
1950″.
The plain and ordinary meaning of the term ” electorate” is
confined to the body of persons who elect. It does not
contain, within its ambit, the extended notion of a body of
persons electing representatives “from amongst themselves”.
Thus, the use of the term “electorale” in Article 171(3) of
our Constitution, could not, by itself, impose a limit upon
the field of choice of members of the electorate by
requiring that the person to be chosen must also be a member
of the electorate. The qualifications of the electors
constituting the “electorate” and of those who can represent
each ” electorate”, contemplated by the constitution and
then supplemented by Parliament, are separately set out for
each house. We may glance at the provisions relating to
Legislative Assemblies first.
Section 16 of the Representation of People Act 43 of 1950
lays down the qualifications of an elector negatively by
prescribing who shall be disqualified for registration in an
electoral roll. A disqualified person is one who :
(a) is not a citizen of India; or
(b) is of unsound mind and stands so declared by a
competent court; _or
(c) is for the time being disqualified from voting under
the provisions of any law relating to corrupt practices and
other offences in connection with elections”.
Section 19 lays down the two conditions for registration on
the electoral roll of a constituency. The person to be
registered must not be less than 21 years of age on the
qualifying date and must
178
be ordinarily resident in the constituency. The persons so
registered, whose names appear on the electoral roll,
constitute the electorato for the legislative Assembly of
each State. Section 5 of the Representation of People Act,
43 of 1.951 enacts :
“5. Qualifications for membership of a
Legislative Assembly:-
A person shall not be qualified to be chosen
to fill a seat in the Legislative Assembly of
a State unless-
(a) in the case of a seat reserved for the
Scheduled Castes or for the Scheduled Tribes
of that State, he is a member of any of those
castes or of those tribes, as the case may be,
and is an elector for any Assembly consti-
tuency in that State;
(b) in the case of a seat reserved for an
autonomous district of Assam, other than a
seat the constituency for which comprises the
cantonment and municipality of Shillong, he is
a member of a Scheduled Tribe of any
autonomous district and is an elector for the
Assembly constituency in which such seat or
any other seat is reserved for that district;
and
(c) in the case of any other seat, he is an
elector for any Assembly constituency in that
State”;
Coming to the Legislative Council, we find that the
qualifications for the four “electorates” are indicated by
Art. 171(3)(a)(b)(c) & (d). And, the qualifications of
candidates for seats in a Legislative Council are given in
Section 6 of the Representation of People Act 43 of 1951
which lays down:
“6. Qualifications for membership of a
Legislative Council.-
(1) A person shall not be qualified to be
chosen to fill a seat in the Legislative
Council of a State to be filled by election
unless he is an elector for any Assembly con-
stituency in that State.
(2) A person shall not be qualified to be
chosen to fill a seat in the Legislative
Council of a State to be filled by nomination
by the Governor unless he is ordinarily
resident in the State”.
A look at Article 171(2), set out above, indicates that the
composition of the Legislative Council of a State was a
matter to be also provided for by law made by Parliament.
It is evident that the constitution makers had directed
their attention specifically towards the methods of election
and composition of the legislature
179
of each State. They themselves prescribed same
qualifications to be possessed by members of each House of
the Legislature. Article 173 lays down :-
“173. A person shall not be qualified to be
chosen to fill a seat in the Legislature of a
State unless he-
(a) is a citizen of India, and makes and
subscribes before some person authorised in
that behalf by the Election Commission an oath
or affirmation according to the form set out
for the purpose in the Third Schedule;
(b) is, in the case of a seat in the
Legislative Assembly, not less than twenty-
five years of age and, in the case of a seat
in the Legislative Council, not less than
thirty years of age; and
(c) possesses such other qualifications as
may be prescribed in that behalf by or under
any law made by Parliament”.
An important and very noticeable difference between, quali-
fications prescribed by Parliament for the membership of a
Legislative Assembly by Section 5 of the Representation of
People Act of 1951 and those for the membership of a
Legislative Council by Section 6 of that Act is that, so far
as a member of the Legislative Assembly is concerned, he or
she has to be an Elector in the Constituency from which he
or she stands, but a member of a Legislative Council in a
State is not, similarly, required to be a member of the
electorate. All that Parliament says, in Section 6 of the
Representation of People Act, 1951, is that the, person to
be chosen as a member of the Legislative Council has to be
“an elector for any Assembly constituency” in the State to
whose legislative Council he was to be chosen. He has to be
“ordinarily resident” in the State to qualify for
nomination. No other qualifications, apart from those found
in Article 173 of the Constitution and Section 6 of the
Representation of People Act of 1951, are to be found laid
down anywhere. But, an additional qualification was found,
by the judgment under appeal before us, to exist by resort-‘
ing to a presumed legislative intent and then. practically
adding it to those expressly laid down.
It may be possible to look for legislative intention in
materials outside the four-corners of a statute where its
language is really ambiguous or conflicting. But, where no
such difficulty arises, the mere fact that the intentions of
the law makers, sought to be demonstrated by what was said
by some of them or by those advising them when the
Constitution was on the anvil, were really different from
the result which clearly follows from language used in the
Legislative provisions under consideration, could not
authorise the use of such an exceptional mode of
construction. “It is well accepted”, said Lord Morris (See:
Davies Jankins &
180
Co. v. Davies)’, “that the beliefs and assumptions of those
who frame Acts of Parliament cannot make the law”.
The judgment under appeal, after discussing the manner in
which Article 171 of the Constitution was framed and the
different views expressed about the nature of the Second
Chambers to be set up by it in our States, says : “The
system of functional, which is also called occupational
representation, as distinguished from territorial
representation, was borrowed from the Irish Constitution and
that is the underlying principle in Article 171. The
opinion of political thinkers and statement on the wisdom of
such representation may not be unanimous. Whatever be the
divergent views, the accomplished fact in the Constitution
is that such a representation has been given recognition and
it has to be implemented. In making the Legislative Council
as a representative body, the framers of the Constitution
have not made it exclusively one of elected representatives
according to their occupations. It is intended to be a
hetergenous and more broad based body consisting of persons
of different walks of life, some elected and some nominated,
each with the experience in his own field of activity”. The
learned Judge concluded; “It is with these objects that
clauses (a),, (b), and (c) of Article 171(3) have been
conceived so that persons in those walks of life could make
their contribution to the Legislative functions of the
State. Article 1.71 in fixing the composition of the
Legislative Council as a functional chamber. has also
indirectly laid down certain qualifications and also
disqualifications of members to be elected thereunder”.
Whatever may have been the opinions of Constitution makers
or of their advisers, whose views are cited in the judgment
under appeal, it is not possible to. say, on a perusal of
Article 171 of the Constitution, that the Second Chambers
set up in nine States in India were meant to incorporate the
principle of what is known as “functional” or “vocational”
representation which has been advocated by Guild-Socialist
and Syndicalist Schools of political thought. , Some of the
observations quoted above, in the judgment under appeal
itself, militate with the conclusions reached there. All
that we can infer from our Constitutional provisions is that
additional representation or weightage was given to persons
possessing special type of knowledge and experience by
enabling them to elect their special representatives also
for Legislative Councils. The concept of such
representation does not carry with it, as a necessary
consequence, the further notion that the representative must
also possess the very qualifications of those he represents.
In the case of the Graduates’ constituency, it is provided
in Article 171(3)(b) that the electors must have held their
degrees
(1) 1967 2 W.L.R. p. 11 39 @ 11 56.
181
for at least three years before they become qualified an
electors. Thus,. in laying down the test of competence of
voters of such a constituency, more possession of degrees by
them was not considered sufficient. Moreover, graduates are
not an occupational or vocational group but merely a body of
persons with an educational qualification. It would,
therefore, not be correct to describe the additional
representation sought to be given to them as an attempt to
introduce the “functional” or “vocational” principle. On
the face of it, Article 171 appears to be designed only to
give a right to choose their representatives to those who
have certain types of presumably valuable knowledge and
education. If the presumption of their better competence to
elect a suitable representative in there, as we think that
there must be, it would be for the members of such a
constituency themselves to decide whether a person who
stands for election from their constituency possesses the
right type of knowledge, experience, and wisdom which
satisfy certain standards. It may well be that the
constitution makers, acting upon such a presumption, had
intentionally left the educational qualifications of a
candidate for election from the graduates constituency
unspecified.
A test laid down by Blackburn J. in R. v. Cleworth(1), to
determine what the correct presumption, arising from an
omission in a statute should be, was whether what was
omitted but sought to be brought within the legislative
intention was “known” to the law makers, and could,
therefore, be “supposed to have been omitted intentionally”.
“It makes no difference”, says Craies ‘in “Statute Law”(2)
“that the omission on the part of the legislature was a mere
oversight, and that without doubt the Act would have been
drawn otherwise had the attention of the legislature been
directed to the oversight at the time the Act was under
discussion”. In the case before us, it could not possibly
be said that the question to be dealt with was not “known”
to the, legislators. It could not even be said that
qualifications of the electors/-as well as of those to be
elected were not matters to which the attention of the law
makers, both in the Constituent Assembly and in Parliament,
was not specially directed at all or that the omission must
be by mere oversight. The provisions discussed above
demonstrate amply how legislative attention was paid to the
qualifications, of the electors ‘as well as of the elected
in every case. Hence, the correct presumption, in such a
case, would be that the omission was deliberate.
A glance at the legislative history lying behind Article 171
also enables us to reach the conclusion that the omission by
the Constitution makers or by Parliament to prescribe
graduation as
(1) [1864] 4 BSS 927, 934
(2) Crains on Statute Law-5th En. 1963 P. 72.
182
must be deliberate. Sections 60 and 61 of the Government of
India Act, 1935, deal with composition of Provincial
legislatures and of the two Chambers of such legislatures.
The Upper Chambers in the Provincial Legislatures were to be
composed of members retiring every third year in accordance
with provisions of the Fifth Schedule to the Act. Rule 10
of this Schedule lays down:
“In a Province in which any seats are to be
filled by representatives of backward areas or
backward tribes, representatives of commerce,
industry, mining and planting, representatives
of landholders, representatives of
universities or representatives of labour,
persons to fill those seats…………….
shall be chosen in such manner as may be
prescribed”.
On 30th April, 1936, the Government of India (Provincial
Legislative Assemblies) Order of 1936 was issued by His
Majesty in Council. It prescribed the qualifications of
persons to be chosen from the “special constituencies” set
up for representation in the Legislative Councils, A glance
at the provisions relating to these qualifications,
including those for the University seats, indicates that it
was invariably expressly provided, where it was so intended,
that a necessary qualification of a candidate for a seat was
that he or she should be “entitled to vote for the choice of
a member to fill it”. Hence, legislative history on the
subject would also indicate. that, whenever any
qualification of the candidate was intended to be imposed,
this was expressly done and not left to mere implications.
We think that the view contained in the Judgment under
appeal, necessarily results in writing some words into or
adding them to the relevant statutory provisions to the
effect that the candidates from graduates’ constituencies of
Legislative Councils must also possess the qualification of
having graduated. This contravenes the rule of “Plain
meaning” or “literal” construction which must ordinarily
prevail. A logical corollary of that rule is that “a
statute may not be extended to meet a case for which
provision has clearly and undoubtedly not been made” (See:
Craies on Statute Law-6th Edn. p. 70). An application of
the rule necessarily involves that addition to or
modification of words used in statutory provisions is not
generally permissible (see e.g. Sri Ram Narain Medhi & Ors.
v. The State of Bombay(1), British India General Insurance
Co. Ltd. v. Captain Itbar Singh & Ors. (2), R. G. Jacob v.
Union of India(3). Courts may deppart from this rule only
to avoid a patent absurdity (see e.g. State ‘of Madhya
Pradesh v. M/s. Azad Bharat Finance Co. & Anr.(4). In Hira
Devi v. District Board, Shahiahanpur(5), this Court observed
(1) AIR 1959 S.C. 459. (2) [1960] 1 SCR 168. (3) [1963] 3
SCR 800.
(4) A.T.R. 1967 S.C. 276. (5) A.T.R. 1952 SC 362@ 365.
183
“No doubt it is the duty of the Court to try
and harmonise the various provisions of an Act
passed by the Legislature. But it is
certainly not the duty of the Court to stretch
the words used by the Legislature to fill in
gaps or omissions in the provisions of an
Act”.
Cases in, which defects in statutory provisions may or may
not be supplied by Courts have been indicated in well known
works such as Sutherland’s “Statutory Construction” (3rd
Edn.(Vol. 2) (Paragraph 4924 at pages 455-558) and in
Crawford’s “Construction of statutes” (1940 Edn.). Only one
passage from the last mentioned work need be cited here: (p.
269) :
“Where the statutes meaning is clear and
explicit, words cannot be interpolated. In
the first place, in such a case, they are not
needed. If they should be interpolated, the
statute would more than likely fail to express
the legislative intent, as the thought
intended to be conveyed might be altered by
the addition of new words. They should not be
interpolated even though the remedy of the
statute would thereby be advanced, or a more
desirable or just result would occur. Even
where the meaning of the statute is clear and
sensible, either with or without the omitted
word, interpolation is improper, since the
primary source of the legislative intent is in
the language of the statute”.
We think that the language as well as the legislative
history of Articles 171 and 173 of the Constitution and
Section 6 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, enable
us to presume a deliberate omission of the qualification
that the representative of the Graduates should also be a
graduate. In our opinion, no absurdity results if we
presume such an intention. We cannot infer, as the learned
Judge of the Madras High Court had done, from the mere fact
of such an omission and opinions about a supposed scheme
“functional representation” underlying Article 171 of our
Constitution, that the omission was either unintentional or
that it led to absurd results. We think that, by adding a
deemed to be necessary or implied qualification of a
representative of the Graduates which the Constitution
makers, or, in any event, the Parliament, could have easily
imposed, the learned Judge had really invaded the
Legislative sphere. The defect, if. any, in the law could
be removed only by law made by Parliament.
We conclude, after considering all the relevant
constitutional and statutory provisions relating to the
qualifications of a candidate for election from the
Graduates’ constituency of the Legislative Council of the
Madras State, that the appellant possesses all the
qualifications laid down for such a candidate.
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Therefore, we allow this appeal, set aside the Judgment and
order of the Madras High Court, and dismiss the,
Respondent’s election petition. The appellant is entitled
to his costs throughout.
V.P.S. Appeal
allowed.
185