Statutory provisions must be harmoniously interpreted as a whole to ascertain legislative intent.

1. The present petition under Art. 126 of the Constitution is directed against the order dt. 1-9-82 passed in an appeal under S.33 of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulations) Act, 1976, (hereinafter referred to as the Act), by the District Judge, Gorakhpur.

2. The facts of the case lie in a very narrow campass. The provisions of the Act were enforced in the area and respondent 1 filed his statement under S. 6(1) of the Act stating that he holds an area of 167 sq. mtrs. in Mohalla Mohaddipur, District Gorakhpur and another area of 363.87 sq. mtrs. He further alleged that he has an area of 1497 sq. mtrs. in Khasra No. 389. In short respondent 1 has got two houses owned by him and both are residential houses and no area was liable to be declared surplus.

3. The State of U. P. contested the case of respondent 1 and it was alleged that the land of respondent 1 was correctly shown to be surplus in the draft statement prepared under S.8 of the Act and the final statement was correctly prepared as contemplated by S.9 of the Act.

4. The Competent Authority by his order dt. 12-10-81 declared an area of 27.60 sq. mtrs. as surplus land. Thereafter the appeal of respondent 1 was allowed by the impugned order dated 1-9-82.

5. Sri Ram Prasad Singh, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel appearing for the State urged that the District Judge erred in holding that the provisions of S.2(q)(i) and (ii) of the Act were contradictory to the provisions of S. 4(9) of the Act. It is a fact that the District Judge has held in para 3 of the judgment, a certified copy of which has been filed as Annexure II, that both the provisions are contradictory to each other.

6. No one has appeared on behalf of the respondents in spite of notices being issued and served on them. I have no option but to decide the case on the basis of the submissions advanced on behalf of the petitioner.

7. It appears that the District Judge did not care to apply the correct and well - known principles of interpretation of statutes. In such a situation the basic principle was that the statute must have been read as a whole and not in peacemeal. In other words all the provisions contained in the Act must have been read together and thereafter efforts must have been made to reconcile the same by ascertaining the intention of the legislature. I think it necessary to refer to some of the decided cases relevant to the present controversy.

8. In Att. General v. H. R. H. Prince Augustus , 1957 (1) All England Report 49 (HL), it was observed as follows: -
"I conceive it to be my right and duty to examine every word of the statute in its context and I use 'context' in its widest sense, which I have already indicated as including not only other enacting provisions of the same statute but its preamble, the existing state of the law, other statutes in pari materia and the mischief, which I can, by those and other legitimate means, discern the statute was intended to remedy."
It was further held in this very case as follows:
"It was an elementary rule of interpretation that the intention of the legislature must be ascertained by reading the statute as a whole."

9. In Leader v. Duffey , 1888 (13) AC 294 at p. 301, it was held by Lord Halsbury as follows:
"I agree that you must look at the whole instrument, unless there may be inaccurracy and inconsistency, you must, if you can, ascertain what is the meaning of the instrument taken as a whole in order to give effect, if it be possible to do so, to the intention of the framer of it."

10. In Canada Sugar Refining Co. v. R. , 1898 AC 735 at p. 741, it was observed by Lord Davey as follows:
"Every clause of a statute should be