on behalf of the Governor-General, were binding on the Government of India. Section 175(3) plainly requires that contracts on behalf of the Government of India shall be executed in the form prescribed thereby; the section however does not set out the consequences of noncompliance. Where a statute requires that a thing shall be done in the prescribed manner or form but does not set out the consequences of non-compliance, the question whether the provision was mandatory or directory has to be adjudged in the light of the intention of the legislature as disclosed by the object, purpose and scope of the statute. If the statute is mandatory, the thing done not in the manner or form prescribed can have no effect or validity : if it is directory, penalty may be incurred for non compliance, but the act or thing done is regarded as good. As observed in Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 10th Edn., p. 376: ‘It has been said that no rule can be laid down for determining whether the command is to be considered as a mere direction or instruction involving no invalidating consequence in its disregard, or as imperative, with an implied nullification for disobedience, beyond the fundamental one that it depends on the scope and object of the enactment. It may perhaps be found generally correct to say that nullification is the natural and usual consequence of disobedience, but the question is in the main governed by considerations of convenience and justice, and when that result would involve general inconvenience or injustice to innocent persons, or advantage to those guilty of the neglect, without promoting the real aim and object of the enactment, such an intention is not to be attributed to the legislature. The whole scope and purpose of the statute under consideration must be regarded.’ Lord Campbell in Liverpool Borough Bank v. Turner [Liverpool Borough Bank v. Turner, (1860) 30 LJ Ch 379 : 45 ER 715] observed : (ER p. 718) ‘… No universal rule can be laid down … as to whether mandatory enactments shall be considered directory only or obligatory with an implied nullification for disobedience. It is the duty of courts of justice to try to get at the real intention of the legislature by carefully attending to the whole scope of the statute to be construed.’ ”
