Supreme Court reserves verdict on whether private properties can be termed material resources of community

The Supreme Court nine judge Constitution Bench reserved its judgement on Wednesday on a vexed legal question that whether private properties can be considered material resources of the community under the  Article 39 of the Constitution and consequently, taken over by state authorities to subserve the common good.

A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice Hrishikesh Roy, Justice B V Nagarathna, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, Justice J B Pardiwala, Justice Manoj Misra, Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Augustine George Masih, reserved its verdict after hearing the arguments put forward by several lawyers, including Attorney General R Venkataramani and Mehta.

The aforesaid Constitution Bench is hearing 16 petitions, including the lead petition filed by the Mumbai-based Property Owners’ Association in 1992. The petitioners challenged Chapter VIII-A of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority Act. Notably, inserted in 1986, the chapter empowers state authorities to acquire cessed buildings and the land on which those are built if 70 percent of the occupants make such a request for restoration purposes.

Furthermore, the MHADA Act which was enacted in pursuance of Article 39 of the Constitution, part of the Directive Principles of State Policy, and makes it obligatory for the state to formulate a policy towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good.

Appearing for the state government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, said the MHADA provisions are protected by Article 31C of the Constitution, which was inserted by the 25th Amendment Act of 1971 with an intention to protect laws giving effect to certain DPSPs.

Article 31C states that no law giving effect to the policy of the state towards securing all or any of the principles laid down in Part IV shall be deemed to be void on the ground that it is inconsistent with, or takes away or abridges any of the rights conferred by Article 14 or Article 19 and no law containing a declaration that it is for giving effect to such policy shall be called in question in any court on the ground that it does not give effect to such policy.

The petitioners have challenged Chapter VIII-A of the Act, asserting that the provisions of the chapter discriminate against the owners and attempt to dispossess them. The main plea was lodged by the POA in 1992 and it was thrice referred to larger benches of five and seven judges, before being referred to a nine-judge bench on February 20, 2002.