Court of Appeal finds that deleted words may be used as an aid
to construction
Although the Court of Appeal emphasised in this case, that care
must be taken when drawing inferences from deleted text, as
deletions can be made for a range of reasons and are not always
indicative of an agreed stance between the parties, the Court was
willing to look at them here, to assist in interpreting the
parties' contract.
The appellant, Mr Atulkumar Parekh, sought a declaration that
his individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) should be set
aside. His central argument was that the IVA was conditional
on the acceptance of a simultaneous IVA relating to his wife, Mrs
Parekh (which was ultimately rejected by Mrs Parekh's
creditors). Clause 4.3 of the proposal submitted for approval
by Mr Parekh's creditors stated: "the acceptance of my
IVA is conditional upon the acceptance of the arrangement for my
wife/husband, following acceptance the estates shall be combined
for dividend
