A consolidating statue is one which collects all statutory provisions relating to a particular topic in one place into one legislative Act with minor amendments and improvements, if necessary. Instances of consolidating statutes are the Arbitration Act, 1940 and the Indian Succession Act, 1925. While interpreting a consolidating Act, a presumption exists the legislature does not intend to change the existing law because it has only collected all relevant existing statutory provisions on a specified topic at one place and has not enacted a new legislation. In Beswick v. Beswick, the Court said that the reason for this is that the Parliament invariably requires from those who have been made in the law, and subsequently a committee also checks the same. The Court further stated that the very object of consolidation is to collect the were found statutory law bearing upon a particular subject, and to bring it down to date, in order that it may from a useful Code applicable to the circumstances existing at the time when the consolidating Act is passed. There is another rebuttable presumption. Viz., that all the statutory provisions consolidated from one place will have the same meaning as they had at the time they were passed. The rebuttal of this presumption may be by express language of the consolidating Act or by necessary implication. If there are more than one reasonable interpretation of a consolidating statute possible, that which has the minimum interference with the existing law is to be favoured. The presumption exits with equal force in both substantive and procedural matters. When a consolidating Act is being interpreted it may actually be the interpretation of consolidation. This old law could be the common law or a statutory law. In a consolidating statute the rule that generally a word would have the same meaning wherever it has been used in the Act has no application because different laws have been taken from different statutes and have been consolidated at one place and naturally same words from different statutes may not have same meaning. Many a time the same statute can be a consolidating as well as an amending Act, and very often the long title of such Act gives a clue to that effect. For instance, the long title of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 is “An Act to consolidate and amended the law relating to Criminal Procedure”. This clearly makes the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and amending and a consolidating Act.
Reference:
- Interpretation of statute – T. Bhattacharya – Central Law Agency
- indiankanoon.org
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
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In the year 2021, we wrote about 1000 Inspirational Women In India, in the year 2022, we would be featuring 5000 Start Up Stories.