'States can't take over all private properties', rules Supreme Court

The Supreme Court in April said the Constitution intended to bring about a 'sense of social transformation' and it would be 'dangerous' to say that private property of an individual cannot be regarded as material resources of community and taken over by state authorities to subserve common good.

Supreme Court's nine-judge bench on Tuesday delivered a verdict on the question of whether state governments can take over private properties to distribute to subserve the common good. In a majority 7:2 ruling, the Supreme Court held that states are not empowered under the Constitution to take over all privately-owned resources for distribution to serve the "common good".

The majority verdict pronounced by the CJI overruled Justice Krishna Iyer's previous ruling that all privately owned resources can be acquired by the State for distribution under Article 39(b) of the Constitution.

The CJI wrote for himself and six other judges on the bench which decided the vexed legal question on 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". It overturned several verdicts that had adopted the socialist theme and ruled that states can take over all private properties for common good.

The CJI said, " We hold that not every resource owned by an individual can be considered a material resource of a community only because it meets the qualifier of material needs. The enquiry about the resource in question falls under 39B must be contest specific and subject to a non exhaustive list of factors such as nature of resource, the characteristics, the impact of the resource on well being of community, the scarcity of resource and consequences of such a resource being concentrated in the hands of private players, the public trust doctrine evolved by this court may also help identify resources which fall under ambit of material resource of a community. "