The recent decision of a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in Property Owners Association vs State of Maharashtra, which interprets Article 39(b) of the Constitution, represents a noteworthy development in the complex and often contentious history of property rights in India. In deciding that not all private property forms part of the “material resources of the community” available for distribution by the state, the court has sought to achieve a nuanced balance between the conflicting demands of individual rights and the state’s obligation to ensure economic justice for all.
The judgement, apart from exemplifying the SC’s ever-evolving take on the characteristics and extent of property rights within a socialist democratic republic, is a reflection of the changing attitude of the ruling dispensation towards some conflicts that have underpinned this discourse since the inception of our republic.
In Property Owners, the court addressed a long-standing debate over the interpretation of Article 39(b), specifically the phrase “material resources of the community”. The judgement carries special significance for its potential impact on future legislation. It refutes the interpretation that all privately owned resources automatically fall under the ambit of “material resources of the community”, an interpretation championed by Justice V R Krishna Iyer in the Ranganatha Reddy case and subsequently followed in the Sanjeev Coke case.
It clarifies that while private resources can be considered “material resources of the community” in specific contexts, this is not an automatic categorisation. By rejecting this broad interpretation, the Court, in a way, reaffirms the importance of individual property rights while acknowledging the state’s role in regulating resources for the common good. The judgement, however, also has significant implications for judicial discipline and the treatment of minority opinions.
What is more troubling is what is not found in the majority’s final judgement. While the dissenting judgements quote in extenso from a “proposed” judgement of the former chief justice, where he is said to have opined that “[the] Krishna Iyer doctrine does a disservice to the broad and flexible spirit of the Constitution,” that observation is curiously absent from the final version. Truly, the transition towards liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation that has occurred since the 1990s cannot lead to the characterisation of the judges from the past “as doing a disservice to the Constitution”.
Legal interpretation naturally evolves with society. The transition from socialist principles to market liberalisation represents a gradual shift in collective thinking rather than the invalidation of earlier approaches. Harsh criticism of past judicial philosophies risks erasing important chapters of constitutional history that contributed to India’s development and would be in ignorance of what Hans-Georg Gadamer termed the “hermeneutic circle”—that our understanding is inevitably shaped by our own historical consciousness.
Early SC decisions favouring land redistribution reflected the immediate post-independence need to address economic disparities. Progressive judgments protecting workers’ rights and the expansive reading of fundamental rights by judges in the 1970s and 1980s was influenced by the need to protect vulnerable sections of society.
Whatever may be the case, Justice Chandrachud’s decision marks an acceptance of the general societal shift from viewing all private property as community resources. And in many ways, his tenure is a culmination of the neoliberal consensus that dominated India’s political economy for the past three decades. His faith in liberty, private enterprise and globalisation is evident in his decisions on economic matters.
He will be remembered as a champion of individual liberties and progressive values. His judgements decriminalising same-sex relationships, on the right to privacy, and the scope of the right to life are rightly hailed as watershed moments. However, for someone who has been deeply conscious of his legacy, what is clear is that Justice Chandrachud stands as a transitionary figure. With all his many successes, faults and failures, he is emblematic of a neoliberal and conservative India coming to terms with a changed society and the false promises and pretences that animated its past.
Saai Sudharsan Sathiyamoothy
(Advocate, Madras High Court)
(Views are personal)
(saaisudharsans@gmail.com)