Union of India v. Filip Tiago De Gama of Vedem Vasco De Gama (1990)

It is the most economical case in the paper, because it carries three heads at once: the golden rule in its Indian form, the presumption against intending injustice with its Article 14 edge, and the modern statement of purposive construction. A single set of facts serves three questions.

Its particular contribution to the presumptions module is the constitutional footing it gives the presumption. In England the presumption against injustice is a rule of construction; in India, a construction producing arbitrary discrimination is avoided because it would expose the statute to challenge under Article 14.

The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984 raised the solatium payable on compulsory acquisition and provided by a transitional provision which awards would get the higher figure.

Read literally, that provision would have given the higher solatium to an award made on 23 September 1984 and denied it to an award made two days later — for adjacent land, acquired for the same purpose, on the same day. Two neighbours, one acquisition, different compensation, turning on the date the Collector happened to make the award.

The claimant was given the higher solatium. The Court said: "The criticism that the literal interpretation of Section 30(2), if adhered to would lead to unjust result seems to be justified." Such a construction "would be vulnerable to attack under Article 14 of the Constitution and it should be avoided."

Note what the same bench did on the neighbouring question: it applied the literal rule to s. 23(1-A). The judgment is therefore not authority for departing from plain words generally — it is authority for departing from them where the literal result is unjust and the words leave room.

The golden rule, Indian form. Where strict grammatical interpretation gives rise to absurdity or inconsistency, the court may adopt an interpretation that gives effect to the purpose, if necessary modifying the language. The justification is the one the same judgment quotes from Justice Holmes: "Words are certainly not crystals, transparent and unchanged". Words are an imperfect instrument, and a construction that produces an arbitrary result is a signal that the instrument has been misread.

The presumption against injustice. The legislature is presumed not to intend injustice; where the words allow a choice, the court prefers the reading that avoids an unjust, arbitrary or oppressive result. The purpose of law is justice, and interpretation is undertaken to avoid uncertainty, hardship, inconvenience, injustice, absurdity, anomaly, inconsistency and repugnancy. In India the presumption is reinforced by Article 14, and Filip Tiago is where that reinforcement is stated.

Purposive construction. The modern formulation is this judgment's: "If a given case is well within the general purpose of the legislature but not within the literal meaning of the statute, then the court must strike the balance." Learned Hand J.'s line, quoted in the same judgment, is the motto: statutes should be construed "not as theorems of Euclid, but with some imagination of the purposes which lie behind them."

The limit. The presumption cannot override clear words. The literal rule is applied even if it leads to an injustice where the language is clear and unambiguous — B.N. Mutto v. T.K. Nandi (1979) gave plain words their meaning although some persons thereby gained a special advantage, and G. Narayanaswami v. G. Pannerselvam (1972) refused to add a qualification to the Constitution to cure what the High Court saw as an unfair result. The presumption operates only on words that leave room for choice, which is also why the same bench read s. 23(1-A) literally.

It opens the presumption against intending injustice, and it is the best single case for the golden rule in Indian law — far better than an English illustration, because the injustice is concrete and the Article 14 point is available. Pair it with A.S. Sulochana v. C. Dharmalingam AIR 1987 SC 242, where evicting a son for a sub-letting done by his father eighteen years earlier would have punished an innocent person: "The law in its wisdom seeks to punish the guilty who commits the sin, and not his son who is innocent of the rent law offence."

It disposes of the argument that a cut-off date must be applied mechanically however arbitrary its effect, provided the words leave room for the fairer reading.

It does not decide that a court may correct any hard result. Where the words cannot bear the fairer reading, the remedy is a challenge to the provision's validity, not a strained construction — and the same judgment's literal treatment of s. 23(1-A) is the proof that the Court was not abandoning the literal rule.