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4.10 Further from plain reading of the Section 114AA of the Customs Act, 1962, we do not find any such stipulation in the said Section that it applies only to the cases of export. On the issue of interpretation of statue we would rely on the observations made by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case relied upon by the authorized representative wherein following has been observed:

Doypack Systems Pvt Ltd [1988 (36) ELT 201 (SC)] "37. In our opinion Sections 3 and 4 of the Act interpreted either on their own language or along with Sections 7 and 8, are not ambiguous; so documents are not relevant. It was further urged, that even if to construe the language is not clear and there is need to resort to aids of construction, it is clear that such aids can be either internal or external. Internal aids of construction 27 C/86144,86151/2022 are definitions, exceptions, explanations, fictions, deeming provisions, headings, marginal notes, preamble, provisos, punctuation's, saving clauses, non-obstante clauses etc. The nothings in the flies of various officials do not fall in the category of internal aids for consideration. Dictionaries, earlier acts, history of legislation, Parliamentary history, parliamentary proceedings, state of law as it existed when the Act was passed, the mischief sought to be suppressed and the remedy sought to be advanced by the Act are external aids. Documents which have been required to be produced do not, in our view fall within the category of external aids as indicated. Having considered the facts and circumstances of the case, we are unable to accept the prayer of the petitioner to direct disclosure and production of the documents sought for. In our opinion, the language used in Section 4 of the Act, is clear enough read with Section 3 of the Act. We have set out the provisions of the said two sections.

40. It has to be reiterated, however that the objects and reasons of the Act should be taken into consideration in interpreting the provisions of the statute in case of doubt. This is the effect of the decision of this Court in K.P. Verghese v. The Income-tax Officer, Ernakulam and Another (982 1 S.C.R. 629), where this Court 29 C/86144,86151/2022 reiterated that the speech made by the Mover of the Bill explaining the reason for the introduction of the Bill could certainly be referred to for the purpose of ascertaining the mischief sought to be remedied by the legislation and the object and purpose for which the legislation was enacted. It has been reiterated that interpretation of a statute being a exercise in the ascertainment of meaning, everything which is logically relevant should be admissible. See in this connection the observations of this Court in Chern Taong Shang & Another etc. v. Commander S.D. Baijat & Others (J.T. 19881 S.C. 202). The documents now sought for by the petitioner do not fall within this category. It is neither the object and scheme of the enactment nor the language used therein, that is sought for in the instant case. It is certainly relevant to know the mischief that was intended to be remedied. But in the documents in question which the petitioner is seeking no such correlation has been established. These are, therefore, not relevant. We reiterate that no officer of the Department can speak for the Parliament even after the Act has been passed. This Court has to interpret the Act on the basis of informed basis by applying external and internal aids to the language is ambiguous. In the words of Lord Scarman "We are to be governed not (by) Parliaments intentions but by Parliament's enactment's". See Cross "Statutory Interpretation"

32 C/86144,86151/2022

16. The purpose of interpretation is essentially to know the intention of the Legislature. Whether the Legislature intended to apply the law in a given case; whether the Legislature intended to exclude operation of law in a given case; whether Legislature intended to give discretion to enforcing authority or to adjudicating agency to apply the law, are essentially questions to which answers can be sought only by knowing the intention of the legislation. Apart from the general principles of interpretation of statutes, there are certain internal aids and external aids which are tools for interpreting the statutes.

17. The long title, the preamble, the heading, the marginal note, punctuation, illustrations, definitions or dictionary clause, a proviso to a section, explanation, examples, a schedule to the Act etc., are internal aids to construction. The external aids to construction are Parliamentary debates, history leading to the legislation, other statutes which have a bearing, dictionaries, thesaurus.

18. It is well accepted that a statute must be construed according to the intention of the Legislature and the Courts should act upon the true intention of the legislation while applying law and while interpreting law. If a statutory provision is open to more than one meaning, the Court has to choose the interpretation which represents the intention of the Legislature. In this connection, the following observations made by this Court in District Mining Officer v. Tata Iron and Steel Co., (2001) 7 SCC 358, may be noticed :