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STATUTE: MEANING AND PARTS OF THE STATUTE

The word ‘Statute’ has many meanings. It may mean what is popularly called an Act of parliament, or a Code such as the statute of Westminster the First, or all the Acts, passed in one session, which was the original meaning of the word (R V Bakewell 1857[7] Ellis and Blackburn’s Reports, QB 846 at p 851-852). The Constitution of India doesn’t use the term Statute. It uses the term law often to describe an exertion of legislative power. The legislature as the representative of the people expresses its will and such expression of the will in accordance with the constitutional provision is a statute.

DEFINITIONS:

River Wear Commissioners V Adamson, (1876-77)2 AC 743: “A statute is the formal expression in writing of the will of the legislative organ in a state”.
Bouvier’s Law Dictionary: “A statute is a law established by the act of the legislative power, that is to say,an Act of the legislature”.
Halsbury Laws of England, 4th Edn, Vol 44 Para 801: “A statute is a declaration of the law as it exists or as it shall be from the time at which such statute is to take effect”.
Allen: “ A statute is the highest constitution formulation of law, the means by which the supreme legislature, after the fullest deliberation, expresses its final will”.
Padma Sundara Rao V State of TN AIR 2002 SC 1334: “ A Statute is an edict of the legislature. It is an established rule, formal regulation or ordinance enacted by the legislature”.
A P Chatterjee: “Statute means an Act of the parliament or of a state legislature, which means a bill properly and duly introduced in either house of the parliament or of the state legislature (where it is bicameral), passed by both the houses of parliament or of the legislature and thereafter assented to by the President or of the governor, as the case may be”.
So far as the meaning of statute in English Law is concerned, it is synonymous with an Act of Parliament. In broad sense of the term, it is the written law which the supreme legislation establishes directly.

PARTS OF THE STATUTE

1.Title
2. Preamble
3.Headings
4.Schedules
5.Marginal Notes
6.Definition Clause
7.Provisos
8.Explantions
9.Exceptions
10.Saving clauses
11.Illustrations
12.Punctuation
EXTERNAL AIDS OF INTERPRETATION
The phrase aid to construction means the help or assistance sought by the courts for construction of an ambiguous word. When outside sources are called in aid for the purpose of constructing a provision, it is called external aids to construction. If the language of the statute is clear and unambiguous there is no need to refer to any external aid. In MSSK Ltd Vs State Bank of India (2005 [4] Mh.LJ 629 Bom HC), the court held that, “there is no bar for resorting to external aid to interpret any writing in case of conflict or confusion or uncertainity, but not otherwise”.
Various external aids to the construction are as follows:
1.Parliamentary History
2.Historical facts
3.Dictionaries
4.Text Books
5.Statutes in Parimateria
6.Contemporonio Expositio
7.Codifying and Consolidating Statutes
8.Help from earlier statutes
9.Help from later statutes
10.Foreign Decisions
11.CAD, Fundamental Duties, Reports of the Committees and Commissions, Scientific Developments.

SUBSTANTIVE AND PROCEDURAL LAW: INTERPRETATION

The law which defines the rights is known as Substantive law. If the law provides the method of aiding and protecting the rights given by substantive law it is called as adjective law (Procedural law). Substantive law is concerned with the ends which the administration of justice seeks, procedural law deals with the means and instruments by which those ends are to be attained. The latter regulates the conduct and relations of courts and litigants in respect of the litigation itself; the former determines their conduct and relations in respect of the matters litigated.
According to Salmond, the law of procedure may be defined as that branch of the law which governs the process of litigation. It is the law of actions- using the term action in a wide sense to include all legal proceedings, civil or criminal. All the residue is substantive law, and relates, not to the process of litigation, but to its purpose and subject-matter. Substantive law is concerned with the ends which the administration of justice seeks; procedural law deals with the means and instruments by which those ends are to be attained.