ISSUE:
Whether the right to an individual’s personal service be treated as a transferable property right under section 154?
What are the implications for the employees when their employer company is dissolved, and its assets and liabilities are transferred to another company?
Whether Section 154 of the Companies Act permit “statutory novation” of the employment contracts, thus binding employees to the new employer without their agreement?
Whether the statutory exception within section 154 that overrides the common law principle that personal service contracts cannot be transferred without the consent of the employees?
RULE:
The golden rule is that the words of a statute must prima facie be given their ordinary meaning.
It was emphasized that there is a need to adhere to the literal meaning of the statutory language, unless explicitly stated by the legislature.
One must not shrink from an interpretation which will reverse the previous law, for the purpose of a large part of our statute law is to make lawful that which would not be lawful without the statute, or, conversely, to prohibit results which would otherwise follow.