In a majority verdict, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that not all private properties can be acquired by the government, even if it is for the greater good.
In the 7:1:1 majority judgment, the court said, “Not all privately-owned resources can be acquired by the State even as the State can stake claims over resources that are material and are held by the community, for the public good.”
Supreme Court pronounced the verdict on a vexed legal question of whether private properties can be considered “material resources of the community” under Article 39(b) and taken over by State authorities for distribution to subserve the “common good”.
A nine-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud pronounced the verdict which deals with the legal sanctity of Article 31C of the Constitution in the wake of the Minerva Mills judgment.
While CJI Chandrachud and six other judges pronounced the majority judgment, Justice Nagrathna partially concurred, and Justice Dhulia penned a dissent.
The court also said, “The role of this court is not to lay down economic policy but to facilitate to lay down economic democracy.”
In the majority opinion, it held that not every resource owned by an individual met the “material resource” criteria merely because it qualified for the needs of a community.
The top court had, in the Minerva Mills case of 1980, declared two provisions of the 42nd Amendment, which prevented any constitutional amendment from being “called in question in any court on any ground” and accorded precedence to the Directive Principles of State Policy over the fundamental rights of individuals, as unconstitutional.
Article 31C protects a law made under Articles 39(b) and (c) empowering the State to take over material resources of the community, including private properties, for distribution to subserve the common good.
The bench, also comprising Justices Hrishikesh Roy, B V Nagarathna, Sudhanshu Dhulia, J B Pardiwala, Manoj Misra, Rajesh Bindal, Satish Chandra Sharma and Augustine George Masih, had reserved its verdict on the issue on May 1 after hearing arguments of different sides for five days.
On May 1, the nine-judge bench observed that nothing will be left for future benches if it is held that all private properties can be considered as “material resources of the community” under Article 39(b) of the Constitution and consequently, the State can take those over to subserve the “common good”.
It had observed that such a judicial declaration will lead to a situation where no private investor would come forward to invest.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan for some of the parties had said the only issue that was referred to the nine-judge bench was whether private properties can be considered as material resources of the community and the bench need not go into the “scope of resources”.
He had argued that if the bench was to decide that material resources of the community included private properties also, then the question would be best answered.
