thereby establishing the link between the appellant and the offence, alleged and found to be proved, or that the compensation awarded is so excessive and outrageous that it fails to meet the proportionality test : all that, which would evince an order to be in defiance of the applicable law and, thus, liable to be labelled as perverse. These instances, which are merely illustrative and not exhaustive, may not arise too frequently but its possibility cannot be completely ruled out. It would amount to a travesty of justice if exercise of discretion, which is permitted by the legislature and could indeed be called for in situations such as these pointed out above, or in any other appropriate situation, is not permitted to be exercised by the Appellate Court by a judicial interpretation of 'may' being read as 'shall' in sub-section (1) of Section 148 and the aggrieved appellant is compelled to make a deposit of minimum 20% of the fine or compensation awarded by the trial court , notwithstanding any opinion that the Appellate Court might have formed at the stage of ordering deposit as regards invalidity of the conviction and sentence under challenge on any valid ground. Reading 'may' as 'may' leads to the text matching the context and, therefore, it seems to be just and proper not to denude the Appellate Court of a limited discretion conferred by the legislature and that is, exercise of the power of not ordering deposit altogether albeit in a rare, fit and appropriate case which commends to the Appellate Court as exceptional. While there can be no gainsaying that normally the discretion of the Appellate Court should lean towards requiring a deposit to be made with the quantum of such deposit depending upon the factual situation in every individual case, more so because an order under challenge does not bear the mark of invalidity on its forehead, retention of the power of such court not to order any deposit in a given case (which in its view and for the recorded reasons is exceptional) and calling for exercise of the discretion to not order deposit, has to be conceded. If indeed the legislative intent were not to leave any discretion to the Appellate Court , there is little reason as to why the legislature did not also use 'shall' instead of 'may' in sub-section (1). Since the self-same section, read as a whole, reveals that 'may' has been used twice and 'shall' thrice, it must be presumed that the legislature was well and truly aware of the words used which form the skin of the language. Reading and understanding the words used by the legislature in the literal sense does not also result in manifest absurdity and hence tinkering with the same ought to be avoided at all costs. We would,
