Literal Rule Of Statutory Interpretation: Latest Trends

Ashika Ranjan, KIIT School of Law

ABSTRACT

When the lawmakers draft legislation, the choice of words is often very precise and specific. Sometimes, while applying those legislations, the judiciary comes across situations where the meanings of some words or phrases in a particular statute or legislation are unclear. For such situations, the judiciary has devised certain rules of statutory interpretation, over time. Presently, there are three rules of statutory interpretation, namely, the literal rule of interpretation, the golden rule of interpretation, the mischief rule of interpretation. This article focuses on the literal rule of interpretation, which is the oldest rule of statutory interpretation. In this article, an attempt has been made to explain the meaning, advantages, and disadvantages of the literal rule of interpretation, which states that interpretation should be done by giving the ordinary grammatical meaning to the word or phrase in question. To conclude, a brief analysis of the recent trend of interpretation has been done, where it is seen that now the approach has shifted from literal rule to a more purposive one.

Keywords: ordinary, cardinal, grammatical, absurdity, legislative intent.