SC reserves verdict on whether private properties can be termed material resources of community.

SC reserves verdict on whether private properties can be termed material resources of community. New Delhi, A nine-judge Supreme Court bench reserved its verdict on Wednesday on a vexed legal question that whether private properties can be considered “material resources of the community” under Article 39 of the Constitution and consequently, taken over by State authorities to subserve the “common good”. The question is being dealt with by the Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud. The bench is hearing 16 petitions, including the lead petition filed by the Mumbai-based Property Owners’ Association in 1992. The POA has vehemently opposed Chapter VIII-A of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority Act. Inserted in 1986, the chapter empowers state authorities to acquire cessed buildings and the land on which those are built if 70 per cent of the occupants make such a request for restoration purposes. The MHADA Act was enacted in pursuance of Article 39 of the Constitution, which is part of the Directive Principles of State Policy , and makes it obligatory for the State to create 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”. The state government, represented in the court by 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. “…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…,” Article 31C reads.