The India Cements Limited Represented ... vs Director General Of Mines Safety, ... on 14 August, 2001
The inclusion of Manager assumes significance since the word "Manager" is different and distinct from the word Directors. By the said amendment, the company is empowered to nominate the managers also and therefore, the nomination of the General Managers as owners of the two units ought to have been accepted by the respondents. The learned Additional Advocate General would submit that while interpreting any provision of any enactment, the cardinal rule of construction of statutes is to read the statue literally, that is, by giving to the words used by the legislature their ordinary, natural and grammatical meaning. The learned Additional Advocate General in support of the above submission relied upon the judgments of the Supreme Court reported in Jugalkishore Saraf v. Raw Cotton Co. Ltd. and Mohammad Ali Khan v. Commissioner of Wealth Tax A.I.R. 1997 S.C. 165. According to the learned Additional Advocate General, a plaint reading of proviso (C) to Section 76 as amended by Act 42 of 1983 would mean that a manager whether he is a paid servant or a Director when anyone of the Directors is appointed as a manager. The learned Additional Advocate General would further submit that the General Managers who are qualified engineers and expert in the mining activities have the ultimate control of the respective mines and the Directors who are expertise in the various other financial, technical and other fields are not expertise in the mining area. In view of the above only, the experts in the mining field are appointed as General Managers giving a complete control of the respective mines. The learned Additional Advocate General further submitted that the General Managers have the ultimate control of the respective mines. When the ultimate control vests with the respective General Managers, they should be considered as the owners of the respective mines. The learned Additional Advocate General submitted that the nomination of General Managers as owners under proviso (C) to Section 76 has to be construed as one in conformity with the provision of Section 2(1)(l) and Section 76 of "the Act". Therefore, the learned Additional Advocate General submitted that the direction as prayed for in the writ petition should be granted.