Vs.

Judges: S.C. AGRAWAL & G.B. PATTANAIK, JJ.

Date of Judgment: Mar 04, 1997

Statute

Taxing – Strict letter of law to be followed in construction of taxing statute -Harmonious construction.

It is a cardinal principle of construction that the words of a statute are first understood in their natural, ordinary or popular sense and phrases and sentences are construed according to their grammatical meaning unless that leads to some absurdity or unless there is something in the context or in the object of the statute to suggest the contrary. It has been often held that the intention of the legislature is primarily to be gathered from the language used, which means that attention should be paid to what has been said as also to what has not been said. As a consequence a construction which requires for its support additional support, addition or substitution of words or which results in rejection of words as meaningless has to be avoided. Obviously the aforesaid rules of construction is subject to exceptions, just as it is not permissible to add words or to fill in a gap or lacuna. Similarly it is of universal application that effort should be made to give meaning to each and every word used by the legislature. (Para 6)