Joseph Maliakan
The ruling of the nine judge bench of the Supreme Court of India presided by the outgoing Chief Justice of India D.Y.Chandrachud on 5th November 2024 that not all private property can be considered ” material resources of the community ” under the Constitution will have grave negative consequences in India’s endovour towards building a Welfare State.
The Supreme Court ruling that property serving individual needs cannot be appropriated by the state solely for welfare distribution has come at a time when India is faced with extreme levels of inequality , with the top 1 percent of the population controlling a huge share of the country’s income and wealth.
In 2022-2022, the top 1 percent of India’s population earned 22.6 percent of the country’s national income . The top 1 percent also owned 40.1 percent of the country’s wealth, which is the highest since 1961. The Indian government spends very little on public health care and has promoted a commercial health care system. This means that decent healthcare is only available to only the moneyed.
While poverty has decreased , many people who have escaped poverty are at the risk of slipping back into poverty. The infant mortality rate in some of the poorest states in India is higher than those in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the World Inequality Report 2022′ India is amoung the most unequal countries in the world , with the top 10 percent and 1 percent of the population holding 57 percent and 22 percent of the national income , respectively. The share of the bottom 50 percent has reduced to a mere 13 percent.
Viewed from the perspective of Article 39 (b) of , Constitution ( Part IV ) Directive Principles of State Policy which states that ” The State shall, in particular , direct its policy towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of these community are so distributed as best to serve common good ” the Indian State has failed in its duty in promoting economic and social equality.
Supreme Court rulings so far had held that Article 39 (b) of the Indian Constitution granted states sweeping powers to acquire private resources for the comon good. The question before the Supreme Court in the latest case was whether private properties fell under definition of ” material resources of the community” as stated in Article 39 (b).
The 7 -2, majority judgement authored by the outgoing Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud has categorically clarified that property serving individual needs cannot be appropriated by by the state solely for welfare distribution under Article 39 (b) of the Constitution.
The nine judge bench delivered three separate judgements in the case with the Chief Justice writing the majority judgement, with six judges Justices, Hrishikesh Roy, JB Padiwala, Manoj Misra , Rajesh Bindal , Satsh Chandra Sharma,and Augustine George Masih endorsing it.
Justice Sudhanshu Dulia in his dissenting judgement endorsed Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer’s minority view in a seven judge bench ruling in the 1977 Ranganath Reddy verses State of Karnataka case which said ” material resources of the community in Article 39 (b) included privately owned property.”
Justice B.V.Nagarathna disagreed with the interpretation of Article 39 (b) .She wrote as separate judgements but concurred with the majority view on the substansive issues.” Not every resource owned by an individual can be considered a ” material resources of the community merely because it meets the qualifier of material needs ” she wrote.
Though in 1977 the Supreme Court in the Ranganatha Reddy case by a 4: 3 majority held that private property did not fall within the ambit of ” material resources of the community ” it was Justice Krishna Iyer’s contrary minority view which held sway in the years to come.
Article 39 (b) was later reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 1983 when the Court upheld the nationalisation of coal mines relying on Justice Krishna Iyer’s ruling . The SC held that the provision ” takes within its stride the transformation of wealth from private ownership in to public ownership and is not confined to that is already public owned.”
In the 1977 ruling Justice Krishna Iyer had said , ” both private and public resources form part of ” material resources of a community ” under Article 39 (b) .Excluding ownership of private resources would undermine the very purpose of redistribution.
Justice Iyer had further pointed out that ” material resources included all the national wealth , not just public possessions.” Everything of value or use in the material world is a material resource , and the individual being a member of the community , his resources are a part of those of the community.”
Endorsing Justice Iyer’s opinion Justice Dulia said ” There should no confusion that the expression ” material resources of the community ” used in Article 39 (b) includes privately owned resources.”
The Supreme Court gave the present ruling acting on a challenge to the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act by property owners following a 1986 amendment. In 1986a new chapter was added to allow for the acquisition of properties by the by the state for preservation purposes.
The addition declared that the amendments in the housing law intended to give effect to Article 39 (b) of the Constitution , allowing the state to make policies for controlling , owning , and redistributing a community’s material resources for the public good.
