BLS LLB 5 Years Sem 5 Legal Language 2025-26 - ATKT 75/25 Question Paper with Solutions

A bridge was built by them.

A statute has retrospective effect when it operates on transactions, rights or events already past, that is, when it takes away or impairs a vested right acquired under the existing law, or creates a new obligation, imposes a new duty or attaches a new disability in respect of something already done.

The general rule is a presumption against retrospective operation, expressed in the maxim nova constitutio futuris formam imponere debet, non praeteritis, "a new law ought to regulate what is to follow, not the past". A statute is therefore construed as prospective unless it says otherwise expressly or by necessary implication.

Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the provisions were Sections 235(1) and (2) in a sessions trial and Section 248(1) and (2) in a warrant case. The Code has since been replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, with effect from 1 July 2024.

A power of attorney is a formal instrument by which one person, the principal or donor, authorises another, the agent or attorney, to act on his behalf, so that the acts of the attorney within the authority conferred bind the principal as if he had done them himself.

It is governed by the Powers of Attorney Act, 1882, and, as a species of agency, by Sections 182 to 238 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. It may be general, conferring authority in all matters or in all matters of a class, or special, conferring authority for a single transaction.

In pari materia means "upon the same matter or subject". Statutes are said to be in pari materia when they relate to the same subject, or to the same person or class of persons, or have the same purpose or object, so that they may be construed together as forming one system and as explaining one another.

As a rule of interpretation it means that where a word or provision in one Act is doubtful, the court may look at another Act on the same subject to ascertain its meaning, on the presumption that the legislature uses the same expression in the same sense throughout a connected body of law.

A mandatory provision is one that must be obeyed exactly, and non-compliance makes the act done invalid. A directory provision is one that ought to be obeyed, but substantial compliance is enough, and breach does not by itself invalidate the act, though it may attract other consequences such as departmental action.

THE TESTS THE COURTS APPLY. The words shall and may are indicative but not conclusive, and the court looks at substance rather than form. "Shall" has repeatedly been read as directory and "may" as mandatory. The tests are:

• Time limits for the exercise of a power by an authority are often held directory, so that the public is not deprived of the benefit of the statute by an official's delay; but time limits for a citizen to file an appeal or an application are mandatory, because the other side acquires a right on their expiry.
• Section 11 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, contains both in one sentence: "the proceedings may be held in camera if the Family Court so desires" is directory, conferring a discretion on the court; "and shall be so held if either party so desires" is mandatory, conferring a right on the party.
• Provisions requiring notice before an adverse order, or requiring reasons to be recorded, are mandatory, because they secure natural justice.

2. There must be COMPULSION. A statement made voluntarily is outside the protection, and a person may always waive his own privilege.
3. The compulsion must be TO BE A WITNESS AGAINST HIMSELF. In State of Bombay v. Kathi Kalu Oghad (1961) an eleven-judge Bench held that "to be a witness" means imparting personal knowledge, so that giving thumb impressions, specimen signatures, handwriting samples, fingerprints or blood samples is NOT being a witness against oneself; these are identifying features and not communications of knowledge.

Statutory reinforcement. Under the criminal procedure code a person examined by the police is not bound to answer questions the answers to which would tend to expose him to a criminal charge, and an accused does not render himself liable to punishment by refusing to answer at his examination by the court. A confession to a police officer is inadmissible under the law of evidence, now the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, and a confession obtained by inducement, threat or promise is irrelevant. Causing hurt to extort a confession or information is itself a grave offence.

A search for case law is conducted in a settled order, and the methods are these.

1. Start with the statute, if there is one. Read the section, its definitions, provisos and explanations, and note what it does not decide. What the statute leaves open is what the case law will have decided, and this step alone often halves the search.

2. The subject or topical method: digests and encyclopaedias. A digest arranges reported decisions by subject with short summaries. Look up the subject, then the sub-heading matching your facts: "Negligence, medical"; "Contract, minor's agreement". The AIR Manual does the same for statutes, printing each Central Act with case annotations under each section, which is the standard first stop in Indian practice.

3. The statutory method: annotated statutes. Where you know the section, use a commentary on that Act, which lists the decisions section by section.

4. The case-name method. Where you know the name, a table of cases or an online search gives the citation at once.

9. Textbooks and commentaries. For an uncodified subject such as the law of torts, the standard commentaries, Ratanlal and Dhirajlal, Winfield and Jolowicz, Salmond, are the natural finding tool, because there is no statute to start from. They are finding tools, not authority: you cite the case, not the book that led you to it.

10. Journals and periodicals, for case comments that identify the significance of a decision and the argument against it.

Then read the case properly. Read the judgment, not the headnote: the headnote is written by the report's editor, is not part of the judgment and binds nobody. Identify the ratio decidendi, the proposition necessary to the decision on the material facts, and distinguish it from obiter dicta. Note the court, because that fixes the authority: a Supreme Court decision binds every court in India under Article 141; a High Court decision binds only the courts subordinate to it; an English decision is persuasive only.

3. BY OBJECT OR NATURE. This is the classification that carries the rules of construction:

3. The class is not exhausted by the enumeration; many other weapons exist.
4. The general term follows the enumeration.
5. There is no indication of a contrary intention.

The argument for inclusion. Pepper spray is a chemical irritant designed to incapacitate a person by causing pain, temporary blindness and difficulty in breathing. It is capable of being used to inflict bodily harm, and it is carried for that purpose, whether offensively or defensively. It is therefore of the same genus as knives, guns and explosives, and falls within "other weapons". The purpose of the provision supports this: a rule excluding weapons from a crowded public stadium is directed at anything that can injure or cause panic, and pepper spray discharged in a packed stand could cause a stampede.

The argument for exclusion, which must be stated:

• The enumerated items are all capable of causing serious or lethal injury; pepper spray is a non-lethal article, and if the genus is defined as deadly weapons it falls outside.

Explain what type of construction would be used to interpret statutes of such nature.

(i) The aids available.

Where a statute uses a word it has not defined, the court resorts to aids to construction, and it uses internal aids first and external aids only if the doubt survives.

INTERNAL AIDS, found within the Act itself:

1. The long title and the short title. "An Act to provide for the conservation of the environment ..." at once shows that "environment" is used in its natural, physical sense and not, say, in a commercial or social one.
2. The preamble, if there is one, stating the reasons for the enactment.

1. Statutes in pari materia, which is by far the strongest aid here. The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, defines "environment" in Section 2(a) as including water, air and land and the inter-relationship which exists among and between water, air and land, and human beings, other living creatures, plants, micro-organisms and property. The Water Act, 1974, the Air Act, 1981, the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, and the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, are all on the same subject. A court construing an undefined "environment" in a 2025 Act would begin here, because a statute in pari materia is itself an enactment and therefore outranks every other external aid.
2. Dictionaries, general and technical, remembering that a dictionary gives every meaning a word can bear and that the context must choose.
3. The General Clauses Act, 1897, for any defined expression used in the Act.
4. Parliamentary history: the Statement of Objects and Reasons, committee and Law Commission reports, and the debates, used with caution.
5. Historical facts and surrounding circumstances, that is, the mischief the Act was passed to remedy, which is what the mischief rule in Heydon's Case (1584) directs the court to consider.

A welfare, beneficial or remedial statute is one enacted for the benefit and protection of a class of persons, or of the public, and it is construed LIBERALLY, so as to advance the remedy and suppress the mischief. Where two constructions are reasonably possible, the one that promotes the object of the Act and favours the persons it was passed to protect is preferred.

Applied here: if "environment" is capable of a narrow meaning, say air and water alone, and a wide one including land, flora, fauna, micro-organisms and the relationships among them, the wide meaning is to be preferred, because the Act is for the conservation of the environment and a narrow reading would leave much of what it was passed to protect outside it.

The Indian illustration to cite is B. Shah v. Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Coimbatore (1977), where maternity benefit was held to be computed for all the days of the week including Sundays, because the Maternity Benefit Act is beneficial legislation and the construction giving the woman more must be preferred.

34 OF 1971) [10th August, 1971.] An Act to provide for the termination of certain pregnancies by registered medical practitioners and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. BE it enacted by Parliament in the Twenty-second Year of the Republic of India as follows: -

These trains connect distant suburbs to the main city, helping office workers, students, traders, and tourists travel conveniently at affordable rates. Over the years, Mumbai local trains have undergone remarkable advancements in speed, technology, and passenger safety.

(i) Give an appropriate title, and state why Mumbai local trains are described as the "lifeline" and the "pulsating veins" of Mumbai.

Title: "Mumbai's Local Trains: The Lifeline of the City."

(Equally acceptable: "The Suburban Railway and the Life of Mumbai" or "Millions a Day: Mumbai's Local Trains".)

Why they are called the "lifeline". The passage gives the reason immediately: because they transport millions of passengers every day quickly and efficiently. It develops this in four ways:

1. The suburban railway network, introduced during the British era, has grown into one of the busiest train systems in the world.
2. The trains connect distant suburbs to the main city, carrying office workers, students, traders and tourists conveniently and at affordable rates.
3. They are essential to the economic growth of the city: they ensure that businesses function smoothly by enabling workers to reach their workplaces on time.
4. During emergencies such as floods or heavy traffic, they often remain the fastest and most dependable mode of transport.

The passage places these within remarkable advancements over the years in speed, technology and passenger safety, and adds a benefit beyond the passenger: the network significantly alleviates road congestion and environmental pollution by promoting the widespread use of public transportation.

What it is. The General Clauses Act, 1897 (Act No. 10 of 1897) is an interpretation Act: a statute about statutes. It supplies definitions and rules of construction which are read into every Central Act unless the Act being construed provides otherwise.

THE OBJECT AND PURPOSE.

1. To shorten the language of Central Acts, by providing once and for all the definitions and rules which would otherwise have to be repeated in every enactment.
2. To provide uniformity of expression, so that the same word bears the same meaning throughout the Central statute book.
3. To state rules of construction which give effect to the ordinary intention of the legislature on recurring matters: commencement, repeal, revival, computation of time, gender and number.
4. To guard against slips and oversights, by importing common-form provisions which a draftsman might forget.

THE SCHEME.

It applies in construing every Central Act and Regulation made after 1897, and, through Section 4, some earlier ones; in construing subordinate legislation made under a Central Act; and, by force of Article 367(1) of the Constitution, in construing the Constitution itself, subject to adaptations.

It yields or does not apply where the particular Act defines the expression differently; where "there is anything repugnant in the subject or context"; where a different intention appears, Sections 6, 13, 14, 16 and 21 being expressly so qualified; to State Acts, which are governed by each State's own General Clauses Act, in Maharashtra the Bombay General Clauses Act, 1904; to enactments made before 1897, except as Section 4 provides; and to documents that are not enactments, such as contracts, deeds and wills.

THE COMING INTO OPERATION OF ENACTMENTS, which is the second half of the question.

The definition. Section 3(13) provides that "commencement", used with reference to an Act or Regulation, shall mean the day on which the Act or Regulation comes into force.

3. The Act says nothing. Section 5 supplies the answer: it commences on the date of assent.
4. The Act commences retrospectively. Where it says it "shall be deemed to have come into force" on an earlier date, it does so; the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, assented to on 8 January 1994 and deemed to have commenced on 28 September 1993, is the standing example, because it replaced an Ordinance promulgated on that date. The word "deemed" is the signal of a retrospective commencement.

And an Act may commence piecemeal, that is, different provisions on different dates, for different areas or different classes of establishment, and by different governments, as the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, does.

Keep three dates apart: the date of assent, under Article 111; the date of commencement, when the Act comes into force; and the date of publication in the Gazette, by which it is notified. Note also Harla v. State of Rajasthan (1951), which holds that a law which has not been promulgated or published cannot bind, because natural justice requires that a person be given the means of knowing what he must obey.

3. The long title. The sentence beginning "An Act to ...", stating the general purpose and scope. It is part of the Act and may legitimately be used to ascertain the general object where a provision is ambiguous, but it cannot control clear enacting words. The older English view that the title was no part of the Act has been abandoned.

4. The preamble. A recital beginning "WHEREAS ...", setting out the reasons for the legislation. It is a key to the mind of the legislature and may be used to resolve an ambiguity, but where the enacting part is clear the preamble cannot cut it down or extend it. Most modern Indian Acts have none; the outstanding example that does is the Preamble to the Constitution, held to be part of it in Kesavananda Bharati (1973).

5. The enacting formula. "BE it enacted by Parliament in the ... Year of the Republic of India as follows". It declares the authority by which the law is made; no role in construing sections.

6. Marginal notes. The short headings against each section. Contested. The old English rule excluded them, since they are inserted by the draftsman and are not voted on. Indian courts will look at a marginal note as an aid where the section is ambiguous, but it can never prevail over the plain words.

11. Exceptions. An exception exempts from the operation of the section what would otherwise fall within it, and is construed strictly, since the section is the rule and the exception is the departure.

12. Saving clauses. A saving clause preserves rights, obligations and proceedings which would otherwise be destroyed, most often on a repeal, and is read with Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897.

13. Schedules. Part of the Act, with the same force as the sections. They carry detail, forms, lists and rules which would clutter the body. Where a section and a schedule conflict, the section prevails.

14. Illustrations. Found in the older codes, the Contract Act, the Evidence Act, the Penal Code. Part of the statute, and valuable as showing how the legislature intended the section to apply, but they cannot modify its language.

15. Punctuation. Of little weight. Older statutes were enrolled without punctuation; punctuation may be looked at but cannot control the plain meaning.

16. The non obstante clause. "Notwithstanding anything contained in ...", which gives the provision overriding effect over whatever it names, and is the standard device for resolving a conflict in advance.

What they are. The primary rules, the literal, golden, mischief and harmonious construction rules, tell a court how to approach a statute as a whole. The subsidiary or secondary rules are narrower working tools, mostly rules of language and of presumption, which help a court fix the meaning of particular words and phrases once the general approach has been settled.

THE RULES OF LANGUAGE.

1. Ejusdem generis, "of the same kind". Where general words follow an enumeration of specific things which form a genus, the general words are confined to things of the same class.

The five conditions: there must be an enumeration of specific words; they must constitute a class; the class must not be exhausted by the enumeration; the general term must follow; and there must be no contrary intention.

Case: in a statute referring to "houses, offices, rooms or other places", the general words are limited to places of the same kind as those enumerated.

4. Reddendo singula singulis, "rendering each to each". Where a sentence contains several subjects and several objects, each is applied to the one to which it properly relates. Illustration: "I devise and bequeath all my real and personal property to A": devise refers to the real property and bequeath to the personal.

5. Generalia specialibus non derogant, "general provisions do not derogate from special ones". Where a general enactment and a special one deal with the same subject, the special prevails, and a later general Act does not repeal an earlier special one by implication.

6. Ut res magis valeat quam pereat, "it is better for a thing to have effect than to be made void". A construction which makes a provision workable and effective is preferred to one which renders it a nullity, and a construction which upholds the constitutionality of a statute is preferred to one which strikes it down.

7. Contemporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege. The meaning given to a statute by those who administered it from the beginning, and long usage under it, is a good guide. It applies to old statutes and not to recent ones, and yields where the language is clear.

8. Statutes in pari materia. Statutes on the same subject are read together as one system, and a word in one may be construed by reference to its use in another.

THE PRESUMPTIONS. That a statute is prospective; that the legislature does not intend what is unjust, inconvenient or absurd; that it knows the existing law and does not alter it further than it says; that it does not intend to exceed its jurisdiction; that words are used in their ordinary sense; that every word has a purpose; and that a statute is constitutional, on which see Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice S. R. Tendolkar (1958).

• Article 42: just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief.
• Article 51A(e): the Fundamental Duty to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women.
• Articles 243D and 243T: reservation for women in panchayats and municipalities since the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Amendments of 1992; and the Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023, reserving one-third of the seats in the House of the People and the State Assemblies for women, to take effect after the next census and delimitation.

THE CASE LAW, which is where the marks are.

• C. B. Muthamma v. Union of India (1979): service rules requiring a woman member of the Indian Foreign Service to obtain permission to marry, and permitting her removal on marriage, were held discriminatory.
• Air India v. Nergesh Meerza (1981): rules terminating the service of air hostesses on first pregnancy were struck down as unreasonable and arbitrary.
• Mary Roy v. State of Kerala (1986): Syrian Christian women held entitled to an equal share in the father's property.

• Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya (2020): permanent commission and command appointments for women officers in the Army, the Court rejecting arguments based on "physiological limitations" as founded on stereotype.
• Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020): a daughter is a coparcener by birth under the amended Hindu Succession Act, whether or not the father was alive on the date of the 2005 amendment.

THE STATUTORY FRAMEWORK. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005; the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005; the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013; the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, following the Justice Verma Committee; the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, raising paid maternity leave to twenty-six weeks; the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006; the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994, against sex selection; the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961; and the Code on Wages, 2019, which carries forward the principle of equal remuneration.

WHERE IT STANDS IN FACT, and an essay must say this or it is not an argument.

First, law changes rules and not norms. A right that a woman must go to court to enforce, against her own family, in a society that regards the claim as ungrateful, is a right most women will not enforce. The law's failure is not in what it says but in the cost of using it.

Second, protection is not the same as equality, and the two are frequently confused. Anuj Garg is the answer: a rule that keeps women out of a workplace for their own safety perpetuates the exclusion it claims to remedy, and the State's duty is to make the workplace safe rather than to keep women out of it.

Third, equality has to reach the household. The Constitution binds the State, and the largest inequalities of work, food, education, mobility and decision-making are inside the family, which is where the law reaches last and least. That is why the frontier of the subject has moved to personal law, property and the recognition of unpaid work.

Citation. Joseph Shine v. Union of India, AIR 2018 SC 4898, (2019) 3 SCC 39, decided on 27 September 2018 by a Constitution Bench of five judges: Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A. M. Khanwilkar, Justice R. F. Nariman, Justice D. Y. Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra. All five held the provision unconstitutional, in four separate concurring judgments.

FACTS. The petitioner, Joseph Shine, a non-resident Indian, filed a public interest petition under Article 32 challenging the constitutional validity of Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the offence of adultery, and of Section 198(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which regulated who might prosecute for it. The petition was not brought by a person prosecuted under the section; it was a challenge to the provision itself.

What the provisions said.

THE JUDGMENT. The Court struck down Section 497 in its entirety as unconstitutional, and struck down Section 198(2) of the Code to the extent that it applied to Section 497. The reasons:

1. Article 14: the section was manifestly arbitrary. Four features of it could not be justified:

• Only the man was punishable; the woman could not be prosecuted even as an abettor, though she was an equal participant.
• The offence depended on the CONSENT OR CONNIVANCE OF THE HUSBAND. If the husband consented, no offence was committed at all. A provision which makes a crime disappear on the consent of a third party is not protecting the institution of marriage; it is protecting a proprietary interest.
• Only the husband could prosecute; a wife whose husband had a relationship with an unmarried woman had no remedy at all under the section.
• The section did not apply where the woman's husband was dead or where she was unmarried, so what it protected was not marital fidelity but the exclusive access of one man to one woman.

• Adultery is no longer a CRIME. It cannot be prosecuted.
• Adultery remains a GROUND FOR DIVORCE under the personal laws and under Section 13(1)(i) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and a ground for judicial separation. A civil consequence survives; a criminal one does not.
• Justice Nariman and Justice Chandrachud observed that adultery may in an appropriate case be relevant to other civil claims, and the Court noted that if adultery drives a spouse to suicide, it may be evidence of abetment.
• In 2023 the Supreme Court clarified that the decision does not prevent the armed forces from proceeding against personnel for "unbecoming conduct" under their own disciplinary law.
• The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, does not re-enact the offence.