Liable - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition liable

Definition :

Liable, means 'Bound or obliged in law or equity; responsible; chargeable; answerable; compellable to make satisfaction, compensation or restitution..... Obligated: accountable for or chargeable with. Condition of being bound to respond because a wrong has occurred. Condition out of which a legal liability might arise...... Justly or legally responsible or answerable, Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Edn.; see also Zunjarrao Bhikaji Nagarkar v. Union of India, (1999) 7 SCC 409.

Means legally bound, subject to a for or penalty under an obligation, Concise Oxford Dictionary; see also Zunjarrao Bhikaji Nagar Kar v. Union of India, (1999) 7 SCC 409.

The word 'liable' means a future possibility or probability happening which may or maynot actually occur, State v. Amru Tulsi Ram, AIR 1957 Punj 55.

The word 'liable' occurring in many statutes, has been held as not conveying the sense of an absolute obligation or penalty but merely importing a possibility of attracting such obligation, or penalty, even where this word is used along with the words 'shall be'. But a statute is not to be interpreted merely from the lexicographer's angle. The court must give effect to the will and inbuilt policy of the legislature as discernible from the object and scheme of the enactment and the language employed therein, Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs to Government of West Bengal v. Abani Maity, AIR 1979 SC 1029 (1032): (1979) 4 SCC 85: (1970) 3 SCR 472.