KADIR MOHAMMED Vs. AUGUSTHY VARGHESE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PRECEDENTS can make law a wilderness where courts, counsel and clients grope to find their path as this case has proved.

(2.) THE suit out of which this revision has stemmed, was one for partition and recovery of possession of two items of property. We are concerned here only with item 1 and defendant No. 2. THE plea of this defendant, who is not a sharer, is that he is a tenant of item No. 1 and the plaintiffs case, on the other hand, is that he is just a caretaker of this property. THE controversy therefore is as to whether the 2nd defendant is only an agent or a tenant. A petition had been filed by the 2nd defendant, as early as 1962, for fixation of fair real which was re-numbered as O. A. 3586 of 1964. THE long lapse of 5 years has left this rather summary proceeding before a quasi-judicial authority still lingering in the trial stage. By way of aside, is it not true that such interminable delay breeds cynicism about justice, brings courts into disrepute and corrodes the very foundations of constitutional government? It may be good to recall the warning of Pope Paul, in opening the judicial year of the Sacred Roman Rota, that "culpable delay' in the tribunal's dispensing of justice is 'in itself an act of injustice' "

(3.) THE object of a statute is relevant to the construction thereof and it is legitimate to adopt a liberal construction that makes the provisions meaningful and effective. THE law must be so interpreted as to advance the remedy and to suppress the mischief which prorated the enactment, if need be even by departing from the dictionary meaning or the popular meaning of the words used. It is well settled that, while a rewriting of the section is not part of the judicial power, if one construction will lead to an absurdity while another will give effect to what commonsense would show as obviously intended, the construction which would defeat the ends of the Act must be rejected, even if the same words in the same section and even in the same sentence have to be construed differently. It has been held that in order to give meaning to the intention of the legislature, some words may, in suitable cases, be read into the provision to avoid reducing them to an absurdity. I have said this much about the canons of interpretation of statutes for a proper appreciation of arguments addressed before me and the view I propose to adopt.