GOLDEN RULE

 

GOLDEN RULE

The rule enunciated in that case came to be known as the 'golden rule'; a court could construe a statute by departing from the literal meaning of the words if to do would avoid consequences which are absurd.

It stated that, "In construing wills, and indeed statutes and all written instruments, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to, unless that would lead to some absurdity, or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words ay be modified so as to avoid the absurdity and inconsistency, but no further.

 The golden rule is still referred to by the courts today as a means of modifying stringent application of the literal rule.

It was set out by Lord Blackburn in River Wear Commissioners v, Adamson. The golden rule, he stated, enabled the courts: "to take the whole statute together, and construe it all together, giving their words their ordinary significance, unless when so applied they produce an inconsistency, or an absurdity or inconvenience so great as to convince the court that the intention could not have been to use them in their ordinary significance, and to justify the court in putting on them some other signification, which, though less proper, is one which the court thinks the words will bear."

Affirming this rule Lord Simon of Glaisdale in Suthendran v. Immigration Appeal Tribunal, has said: "Parliament is prima facie to be credited with meaning what is said in an Act of Parliament. The drafting of statutes, so important to a people who hope to live under the rule of law, will never be satisfactory unless courts seeks whenever possible to apply 'the golden rule' of construction, that is to read the statutory language, grammatically and terminologically, in the ordinary and primary sense which it bears in its context, without omission or addition. Of course, Parliament is to be credited with good sense; so that when such an approach produce s injustice, absurdity, contradiction or stultification of statutory objective the language may be modified sufficiently to avoid such disadvantage, though no further".

The rule stated above have been quoted with approval by the Supreme Court in Harbhajan Singh v. Press Council of India wherein the Court observed: "Legislature chooses appropriate words to express what it intends, and therefore, must be attributed with such intention as is conveyed by the words employed so long as this does not result in absurdity or anomaly or unless material-intrinsic or external-is available to permit a departure from the rule.

Lord Wensleydale called it the 'Golden Rule' and adopted it in Grey v. Pearson and thereafter it is usually REFERED as Lord Wensleydale's Golden Rule. It is very useful rule in the construction of a statute to ere to the ordinary meaning of the words used, and to the grammatical construction, unless that is at variance with the intention of the legislature to be collected from the statute itself, or leads to any manifest absurdity or repugnance, in which case the language may be varied or modified so as to avoid inconvenience, but no further. Now let us see how golden the Golden Rule is.

 In state of Punjab v. Quaiser Jehon Begum an application under Sec. 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 94, for reference to the civil court was made by the respondent within 6 months of her knowledge of award regarding compensation, but beyond 6 months from the date of the award. The section requires that the application should be made not beyond 'six months from the date of the award: On the question whether the application was in time, the Supreme Court held: “A literal and mechanical construction of the words would not be appropriate and the knowledge of the party affected by the award, either actual or constructive, being on essential requirement of fair play and natural justice, the expression used must mean the date when the award is either communicated to the party or is known to him either actually or constructively"  

The Golden Rule says that if there is anything absurd, etc. one can rely on in addition to its literal meaning of the crucial words; but what happens if the judge says "I do not find anything absurd in the literal meaning." That is what happened in the last two cases mentioned.

Thus, if the meaning of the words is at variance with the intention of the legislature to be collected from the statute itself and leads to some absurdity or repugnance, then the language may be varied or modified so as to avoid such inconvenience, absurdity or repugnance and no further. The modern positive approach is to have a purposeful construction, which is to effectuate the object and purpose of the Act.

In Jugal Kishore Saraf v. Raw Cotton Co. Ltd. The Supreme Court held that the cardinal rule of construction of statutes is to read the statutes literally, that is by giving to the words their ordinary, natural and grammatical meaning. If, however, such a reading leads to absurdity and the words are susceptible of another meaning, the court may adopt the same.

 

APPLICATION OF GOLDEN RULE

 

In R. v. Sweden Lord Parker construed Section 1(1) of the poor Prisoners’ Defense Act, 1930: “Any person committed for trial for an indictable offence shall be entitled to free legal aid in the preparation and conduct of his defense at the trial and to have solicitor and counsel assigned to him for that purpose.” The Court of Criminal appeal held that this section gave the right to an accused person once the certificate is granted to have a solicitor assigned for the purposes mentioned, but not a right that that solicitor or another should defend him at the trial.

The court observed: “if the section properly construed, gave an accused person a right to have a solicitor at the trial, it would mean that he could repeatedly refuse to have the solicitor assigned when he got advice which he did not like and go to others, and there would be no means whatever to prevent that, with the result that there might be added expense to the country, delays and abuse of the whole procedure.” Such an unreasonable intention of Parliament cannot be imputed.

In Free Lanka Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Ranasinghe (1964) AC 541 a Statute made it felony ‘to break from prison”. Held it would not apply to a prisoner who escaped while the prison was on fire. Since his act was, not to recover liberty, but to save his life. Similarly, a statute which made ‘an act’ criminal in unqualified terms was understood as not applying where the act done was excusable or justifiable on grounds generally recognized by law.

INDIAN CASES

In Uttar Pradesh Bhoodan Yagna Samiti v. Brij Kishore , the Supreme Court held that the expression “landless person” used in Section 14 of U.P. Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1953, which made provision for grant of land to landless persons, was limited to “landless laborers”. A landless labour is he who is engaged in agriculture but having no agricultural land.

The Court further said that “any landless person” did not include a landless businessman residing in a city. The object of the Act was to implement the Bhoodan movement, which aimed at distribution of land to landless labourers who were verged in agriculture. A businessman, though landless cannot claim the benefit of the Act.

In Lee v. Knapp, Section 77(1) of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, provided that “a driver causing accident shall stop after the accident”, the interpretation of the word “stop” was in question. In this case, the driver of the motor vehicle stopped for a moment after causing an accident and then ran away. Applying the golden rule the court held that the driver had not fulfilled the requirement of the section, as he had not stopped for a reasonable period so as to enable interested persons to make necessary inquiries from him about the accident at the spot of the accident.

 

In Ramji Missar v. State of Bihar  in construing Section 6 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, the Supreme Court laid down that the crucial date on which the age of the offender had to be determined is not the date of offence, but the date on which the sentence is pronounced by the trial court An accused who on the date of offence was below 21 years of age but on the date on which the judgment pronounced, if he was above 21 years, he is not entitled to the benefit of the statute.

This conclusion reached having regard to the object of the Act. The object of the Statute is to prevent the turning of the youthful offenders into criminals by their association with the hardened criminals of mature age within the walls of the prison. An accused below 21 years is entitled to the benefit of the Act by sending him under the supervision of the probation officer instead of jail.

In Narendra Kiadivalapa v. Manikrao Patil,  Section 23 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, which permitted inclusion of the name in the electoral roll “till the last date for nomination” for an election in the concerned constituency, has been construed. Section 33(1) of the R.P. Act, 1951 specifies that the nomination papers shall be presented between the hours of 11’O clock in the fore noon and 3’0 clock in the afternoon. Reading these provisions together in the light of the object behind them, the Supreme Court construed the words “last date” in section 23 as “last hour of the last date” of nomination under Section 33(1) of the Act.

DIFFICULTIES IN THE APPLICATION OF GOLDEN RULE

Lord Moulten in Vacher & Sons v. London Society of Compositor had explained the reasons for adopting caution before application of the golden rule of construction in these words: “There is a danger that it may generate into a mere judicial criticism of the propriety of the Acts of the legislature. We have to interpret statutes according to the language used therein, and though occasionally the respective consequences of two rival interpretations may guide us in our choice in between them, it can only be where, taking the Act as a whole and viewing it in connection with the existing state of law at the time of the passing of the Act, we can satisfy ourselves that the words cannot have been used in the sense the argument points.

“It may sometimes happen that laws made for the benefit of the public at large may come in the conflict of some individual interest or take away his legal right and cause injustice to him. That is to say, like public policy, absurdity, uncertainty or repugnance, are very unruly horses.

MERITS

Court has given the power to avoid absurdity.

It aims to avoid speedy amending legislation in parliament.

Closing loopholes

It provides a check on the strictness of the literal rule.

DEMERITS

Judges can amend a statute to supersede the reading.

It is unpredictable and lacks guidelines as to when and where the golden rule is to be used.