Heydon’s /Mischief Rule - Indian Laws - General

Heydon s /Mischief Rule The purpose of Mischief rule is to suppress the mischief and advance the remedy. As early as in the year 1955, the Constitution Bench of this Court in the case of The Bengal Immunity Company Limited v. The State of Bihar and Others - 1955 (9) TMI 37 - SUPREME COURT , has observed thus: 23. It is a sound rule of construction of a statute firmly established in England as far back as 1584 when Heydon's case [3 Co. Rep 7a : 76 ER 637] was decided that- for the sure and true interpretation of all statutes in general (be they penal or beneficial, restrictive or enlarging of the common law) four things are to be discerned and considered: 1st. What was the common law before the making of the Act. 2nd. What was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide. 3rd. What remedy the Parliament hath resolved and appointed to cure the disease of the Commonwealth., and 4th. The true reason of the remedy; and then the office of all the Judges is always to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief, and advance the remedy, and to suppress subtle inventions and evasions for continuance of the mischief, and pro privato commodo, and to add force and life to the cure and remedy, according to the true intent of the makers of the Act, pro bona publico. In In re Mayfair Property Company found the rule as necessary now as it was when Lord Coke reported Heydon case . In Eastman Photographic Material Company v. Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Earl of Halsbury reaffirmed the Rule as follows: My Lords, it appears to me that to construe the Statute in question, it is not only legitimate but highly convenient to refer both to the former Act and to the ascertained evils to which the former Act had given rise, and to the later Act which provided the remedy. These three being compared I cannot doubt the conclusion. It appears to us that this rule is equally applicable to the construction of Article 286 of our Constitution. In order to properly interpret the provisions of that article it is, therefore, necessary to consider how the matter stood immediately before the Constitution came into force, what the mischief was for which the old law did not provide and the remedy which has been provided by the Constitution to cure that mischief. [ Para 53 of NIRMAL KAUR @ NIMMO AND OTHERS - 2022 (10) TMI 873 - SUPREME COURT ]