Non Sequitur

2. The expression is often used in legal decisions to discard, declare irrelevant or unrelated an argument used to establish a particular fact or a legal position. The fact that a statement or conclusion of facts or law is non-sequitur does not necessarily imply that the same is incorrect. What it implies is that the same does not logically follow from the premise from which it is arrived at. In other words the premise and the conclusions are unrelated having no cause and effect relationship.

3. A legal decision is a combined effect of finding of relevant facts — direct and inferential — and application of appropriate legal principles to the problems disclosed by those facts. Finding of a particular factual situation from a bundle of facts, not all leading to the same legal situation, is one area where the conclusion can be termed non-sequitur i.e., not arising from the facts presented. In Alembic Chemical Works Co. Ltd., v. CIT Gujarat, 1989 AIR 1913, where the issue was whether payment to a Japanese company for supply of requisite technical know-how was revenue expenditure being laid out for existing business or capital expenditure on a new business, the High Court on reading of various clauses of the agreement concluded that initiation and exploitation of the new process as per the know-how brought in their wake a new venture requiring an altogether new plant and, accordingly, held it capital expenditure. In appeal the Supreme Court basing their decision on terms of the same agreement held the conclusion drawn by the High Court as non-sequitur.

4. Doctrine of ‘Precedent’ makes the decisions of higher judicial authorities binding on all lower judicial bodies operating within the jurisdiction. Doctrine of ‘stare decisis requires Courts to stand by their earlier decisions, unless a review becomes necessary for reasons of compelling contemporary social conditions or when additional reasons exist pointing to a wrong precedent having been created. Legal decisions favouring the stand of the concerned parties are, therefore, cited to support the views advocated by them. But, as held by the Supreme Court in State of Orissa v. Mohd Illiyas, (2006) ISCC 275, reliance on such decisions without going into the factual background of the cases before it, is clearly impermissible. A decision is a precedent on its own facts. It is an authority for what it actually decides and no more. Their Lordships quoted with approval the observations of Earl of Halsbury L. C in Leathem (1901) AC 495 (HL) to the effect that every judgment must be read as applicable to the particular facts of the case in which such expressions are found. When arguments are based on the earlier legal decisions of the same or higher judicial authority without due consideration of the factual background in which those decision were made, the resulting decision becomes non-sequitur as the conclusion therein does not follow the cited cases. In Wajid Ali Abid Ali v. CIT Lucknow, 1987 AIR 2074 where the Court was to give meaning to the word ‘cease’ in the context of a partner ceasing to be a partner and large number of cases were cited, the Court for the above-stated reason did not consider it necessary to be bogged by these decisions, holding “These (cases) though throwing light, however, are non-sequitur for the issue before us”.

5. In Azadi Bachao Andolan v. UOI reported in 263 ITR 706 where the Supreme Court was to adjudicate on the legality of the Circular No. 789, dated 13-4-2000 making certificate of residence issued by Mauritius Authorities as sufficient proof of residence and beneficial ownership, the argument about the inconsistency of the impugned Circular with the provisions of the Act, was found to be total non-sequitur for the simple reason that the impugned Circular No. 789 was a Circular within the meaning of S. 90 and, therefore, should have legal consequences contemplated by Ss.(2) of S. 90 and not any other provision of the Act. In other words, the Circular, it was held, shall prevail even if inconsistent with the provisions of Income-tax Act 1961, insofar as the parties covered by the provisions of DTAC are concerned, as the convention overrides the provisions of the Act. The consistency of what is contained in the Circular, therefore, needs to follow the provisions of S. 90 which alone prevails.

6. Many a time, an order is supported by several reasons out of which some may be found to be of no relevance to the determination of issue involved. Mention of such reasons is held non-sequitur even if the conclusions are upheld in appeal. In State of Maharashtra v. Chandrabhan Tale, 1983 AIR 803, the Supreme Court was to decide on the legality of the second proviso to Rule 151(1)(ii)(b) of the Bombay Civil Service Rules 1959 which provided for award of subsistence allowance at rupees one per month to a government servant who is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment and whose appeal against the conviction is pending. Concurring with his fellow Judge who held that rule as illegal, inter alia, for reason of ludicrously low amount of subsistence allowance, Chinnappa Reddy, J considered the observations about the nature of public employment opportunity made by the fellow judge as non-sequitur and held that “Though the view that public employment opportunily is national wealth in which all citizens are equally entitled to share and that no class of people can monopolise public employment in the guise of efficiency or other ground, is correct, it is non-sequitur“.

He did not favour the right to equal opportunity to public employment to be treated as a new form of private property and saw no reason to introduce a new concept of property so as to bring in its wake the vestiges of the doctrine of leissez faire and create, in the name of efficiency, a new oligarchy.