New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday said the Constitution intended to bring about a “sense of social transformation” and it would be “dangerous” to say that the private property of an individual cannot be regarded as material resources of the community and taken over by state authorities to subserve “common good”. The observations were made by a nine-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, examining whether privately-owned resources can be considered “material resources of the community”, when the counsel for parties including Property Owners’ Association (POA) of Mumbai made vehement submissions that the private properties cannot be taken over by state authorities under the garb of constitutional schemes of Articles 39 (b) and 31 C of the Constitution. The bench is considering the vexed legal question arising from the petitions whether private properties can be considered “material resources of the community” under Article 39 (b) of the Constitution, which is part of the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP). “It may be a little extreme to suggest that ‘material resources of the community’ only means public resources and we do not have their origin in the private property of an individual. I will tell you why it would be dangerous to take that view. Take simple things like mines and even private forests. For instance, for us to say that the governmental policy will not apply to the private forests under Article 39 (b)… therefore keep the hands off. It will be extremely dangerous as a proposition,” said the bench which also comprised justices Hrishikesh Roy, BV Nagarathna, Sudhanshu Dhulia, JB Pardiwala, Manoj Misra, Rajesh Bindal, Satish Chandra Sharma and Augustine George Masih.
Referring to social and other prevalent situations in the 1950s when the Constitution was made, the bench said, “The Constitution was intended to bring about social transformation and we cannot say that Article 39 (b) has no application once the property is privately held.” It said whether the Maharashtra law, empowering authorities to take over dilapidated buildings, was valid or not was a completely different issue and would be decided independently. The bench asked can it be said Article 39 (b) would have no application once properties were privately held because the society demanded welfare measures and there was a need for redistribution of wealth as well. The CJI referred to the abolition of ‘Zamindari’ and the purely capitalist concept of property also and said it attributed a sense of “exclusiveness” to property. “The socialist concept of property is the mirror image which attributes to property, a notion of commonality. Nothing is exclusive to the individual. All property is common to the community. That’s the extreme socialist view,” the CJI said, adding that the DPSPs have their foundation in the Gandhian ethos.
