Impracticable - Indian Laws - General

Meaning of term Impracticable In Websters Third New International Dictionary- impracticable means not practicable; incapable of being performed or accomplished by the means employed or at command. Impracticable presupposes that the action is possible but owing to certain practical difficulties or other reasons it is incapable of being performed. The same principle will equally apply to satisfy the test of inexpedient as it means not expedient; disadvantageous in the circumstances, inadvisable, impolitic. In Words and Phrases (Permanent Edition, Vol.20, page 460- 461)- it is stated that the term impossible may sometimes be synonymous with impracticable; impracticable means not practicable, incapable of being performed or accomplished by the means employed or at command; impracticable is defined as incapable of being effected from lack of adequate means, impossible of performance, not feasible; impracticable means impossible or unreasonably difficult of performance, and is a much stronger term than expedient. In Law Lexicon (P. Ramanatha Iyer, Second Edition, page 889)- one of the meanings assigned to impracticable is not possible or not feasible; at any rate it means something very much more than not reasonably practicable. In The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998, at p.918), impracticable (of a course of action) is defined to mean impossible in practice to do or carry out. The same dictionary states the usage of the term in these words Although there is considerable overlap, impracticable and impractical are not used in exactly the same way. Impracticable means impossible to carry out and is normally used of a specific procedure or course of action, . Impractical, on the other hand, tends to be used in more general senses, often to mean simply unrealistic or not sensible. Reference - U.O.I. ORS. VERSUS HARJEET SINGH SANDHU ETC.- 2001 (4) TMI 908 - SUPREME COURT