The fact that this particular rule has been applied to one provision is not indication that it should be applied to another provision, even if it recurs in the same enactment. It is based on the idea that if the legislature intended its general words to be used in an unrestricted sense so as to embrace the objects, persons or things covered by the particular words, it would not have taken the trouble of using particular words at all.Whether the rule of ejusdem generis should be applied to a particular provision depends on its terms and the purpose and object the provision is intended to achieve. It should be resorted to not for the purpose of defeating the intention of the legislature but for the purpose of elucidating its words and giving effect to its intentions.
Ejusdem generis is not a rule of law but a rule of construction, which enables a court to ascertain the intention of the legislature when the intention is not clear, and does not warrant the court is subverting or defeating the legislative will by confining the operation of a statute within narrower limit than intended by the law-maker. Commissioner of Inland Revenue, as meaning: ‘that where general words immediately follow or are closely associated with specific words, their meaning must be limited by reference to the preceding words’. The ejusdem generis doctrine has been described in the words of Lopes LJ in Smelting Co. This rule which normally envisages words of general nature following specific and particular words to be construed as limited to things which are of the same nature as those specified, also requires to be applied with great caution and not pushed too far so as to unduly or unnecessarily limit general and specific words to dwarf size. The principle underlying ejusdem generis is applied when the statutory provision concerned contains an enumeration of specific words, the subject of the enumeration thereby constituting a class or category but which class or category is not exhausted at the same time by the enumeration and the general term follows the enumeration with no specific indication of any different legislative intention. To put in a slightly different language, where general and special words, which are capable of analogous meaning are associated together, they take colour from each other and the general words are restrained and limited to a sense analogous to the less general. The rule of ejusdem generis is that where particular words are followed in general, the general words should not be construed in their widest sense but should be held as applying to objects, persons or things or the same general nature or class as those specifically enumerated, unless, there is a clear manifestation of a contrary purpose. The word “ejusdem generis” means “of the same kind or nature”.
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