In Grasim Industries Ltd. v. Collector of Customs, Bombay, (2002) 4 SCC 297, this Court took the view:
10. No words or expressions used in any statute can be said to be redundant or superfluous. In matters of interpretation one should not concentrate too much on one word and pay too little attention to other words. No provision in the statute and no word in any section can be construed in isolation. Every provision and every word must be looked at generally and in the context in which it is used. It is said that every statute is an edict of the legislature. The elementary principle of interpreting any word while considering a statute is to gather the mens or sententia legis of the legislature. Where the words are clear and there is no obscurity, and there is no ambiguity and the intention of the legislature is clearly conveyed, there is no scope for the court to take upon itself the task of amending or alternating the statutory provisions. Wherever the language is clear the intention of the legislature is to be gathered from the language used. While doing so, what has been said in the statute as also what has not been said has to be noted. The construction which requires for its support addition or substitution of words or which results in rejection of words has to be avoided….
In Bhavnagar University v. Palitana Sugar Mill (P) Ltd., (2003) 2 SCC 111, this Court held:
24. True meaning of a provision of law has to be determined on the basis of what it provides by its clear language, with due regard to the scheme of law.
25. Scope of the legislation on the intention of the legislature cannot be enlarged when the language of the provision is plain and unambiguous. In other words statutory enactments must ordinarily be construed according to its plain meaning and no words shall be added, altered or modified unless it is plainly necessary to do so to prevent a provision from being unintelligible, absurd, unreasonable, unworkable or totally irreconcilable with the rest of the statute.
In the case of Harshad S. Mehta v. State of Maharashtra, (2001) 8 SCC 257, this Court opined:
34. There is no doubt that if the words are plain and simple and call for only one construction, that construction is to be adopted whatever be its effect….
19. In the case of Union of India v. Hansoli Devi, (2002) 7 SCC 273, this Court observed:
9…It is a cardinal principle of construction of a statute that when the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous, then the court must give effect to the words used in the statute and it would not be open to the courts to adopt a hypothetical construction on the ground that such construction is more consistent with the alleged object and policy of the Act….
20. In the case of Patangrao Kadam v. Prithviraj Sayajirao Yadav Deshmukh, (2001) 3 SCC 594, this Court took the view:
12. Thus when there is an ambiguity in terms of a provision, one must look at well-settled principles of construction but it is not open to first create an ambiguity which does not exist and then try to resolve the same by taking recourse to some general principle.
