"Noscitur a sociis" means to know from the association.
When two or more words which are susceptible to an analogous meaning are put together, they are to be understood in their cognate sense i.e. in their related nature. The associated words take their colour from each other with the meaning of the more general being restricted to a sense parallel or similar to that of the less general. A word maybe known by the company it keeps, resultant of which, the associated words often explain and limit each other. This principle helps in finding the true legislative intent and , therefore, cannot prevail where wider words are deliberately used.
To understand the application of "noscitur a sociis" through the two main objectives which it tries to attain i.e. the explanation and limitation of a certain word with respect to its surrounding words and to fulfill the actual legislative intent engraved in the statute, the following two cases of Mangoo Singh v. Election Tribunal, AIR 1957 SC 871 and Alamgir v. State of Bihar, AIR 1959 SC 436, are to be referred to and understood, respectively.
In the case of Mangoo Singh v. Election Tribunal, there was a confusion with regards to the word "demand" and how it should be interpreted. It was stated that the word demand should be interpreted with reference to the collocation of the words in which it has been used. The context in this case was that of municipal tax or other dues that the appellant owed. Thereby, even though the expression demand may generally mean "called for" or "asked for", this meaning is wholly out of place when looked at the other words in whose company the word "demand" in this context has been used. The appellant while filing his nomination for the municipal election owed municipal taxes in excess of a year's demand i.e. when interpreted in the light of its accompanying words, the word "demand" here means arrears or dues.
In the case of Alamgir v. State of Bihar, the word in focus was "detain". The Supreme Court held that though the word "detains" generally means detention against will, this meaning cannot be attributed to the word here because the expression should be construed in the light of other words in its company and thereby, when done so, with reference to the other expressions which in turn were takes, entices and conceals, namely, as used in Section 498; it takes a whole new meaning and purpose. The word "detains", therefore, should mean detention without the consent of the husband since Section 498 aims at protecting the rights of a husband who has been deprived of the company of his wife and in the light of this object, the expression "detains" must mean keeping a woman without the permission of her husband, hence, discarding the woman's consent under this provision and rendering it meaningless. As a result, the appellant's defence that the woman was living with her voluntarily stands no ground and does not even come under consideration since his action already violated the legislative intent embedded in the aforementioned section already.
On the other hand, the legal maxim, "ejusdem generis" means "of the same kind".
Normally, what happens is that a general word is given their natural meaning like all other words unless the context requires otherwise but when a general word follows specific words of a distinct category, the general word may be given a restricted meaning of the same category. Here, we see the first and main striking difference between noscitur a sociis and ejusdem generis where the former causes a restriction in meaning of a general word with respect to the association of the words in whose presence it is in whereas in the case of the latter, the restriction in meaning of the general word is caused due to the preceding particular expressions of a distinguished category wherein the legislature by using the particular words of distinct or distinguished genus has shown its intention to that effect.
If the specific words do not belong to a distinct genus then this rule is inapplicable. Consequently, if a general word follows only one particular word, that single particular word does not constitute a distinct genus and, therefore, ejusdem generis rule cannot be applied in such a case. This also shows that for the rule of ejusdem generis to be applicable, the pre-existence of a distinct genus is a must and that genus should be containing more than one particular word to successfully constitute a distinguished category of particular expressions to ultimately restrict the meaning of the succeeding word which follows it.
Although the principle of ejusdem generis is not universal, the main rationale at play behind it is that if the legislature intended general words to be used in an unrestricted sense, it would not have bothered to use particular words at all. This rule like many other rules of statutory interpretation is a useful servant but a bad master.
The landmark case of Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board v. Harishanker, AIR 1979 SC 65, has laid down the following five essential elements of this rule. They are as follow:
1) The statute contains an enumeration of specific words.
2)The subjects of enumeration constitute a class or category.
3)The class or category is not exhausted by the enumeration.
4)The general terms follow the enumeration
5)There is no indication of a different legislative intent.
The other notable case, in re Latham Deceased (1961)3 WLR 1154, the words 'or other person' in the expression 'trustee, guardian, committee or other person' in Section 8(4) of the Finance Act, 1894 was interpreted ejusdem generis to mean a person in a similar position to a trustee and as such a person who was beneficially interested could not be included within it. This case is an ideal instance of how the principle of ejusdem generis actually applies; as we see here, the distinct genus of the particular words "trustee", "guardian" etc. helped determine the meaning of the expression "other person" where in the general term derived its restricted meaning from its preceding counterparts which in turn were all of "same kind" i.e. ejusdem generis.
This is how 'noscitur a sociis' and 'ejusdem generis' bear the same object till a significant extent yet the way in which both of them get implemented and executed is not really same and showcases a fine line of difference which when looked in deeply turns out to be quite prominent.
~ Akash Dey Bhowmick
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