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A nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Union government whether all material resources created by individual human labour constitute the resources of the community.
The Bench is hearing a reference on the contours of Article 39(b) of the Constitution, including whether privately-owned resources could be considered as “material resources of the community”. The Article provided that the state should direct policy in such a way that the ownership and control of material resources of the community were distributed to best subserve the common good.
Attorney General (AG) R. Venkataramani, appearing for the Union of India, submitted that “all things in the material world which are available and made available by human interaction or engagement constitute the material resources of the community”.
“Once resources are in the hands of the state, no further questions about ownership and control issues will make sense,” the AG said.
This prompted the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading the Constitution Bench, to ask the AG if he was suggesting that “everything created by the application of private labour was the material resource of the community”.
“So I build a house using my own income, is it the material resource of the community? I own a car, is it the material resource of the community? Is there no concept of private property,” Chief Justice Chandrachud queried.
Mr. Venkataramani responded that “if it goes beyond the boundary of private consumption, there is an element of the community having a call on the resource”.
Justice Hrishikesh Roy, on the Bench, reacted by observing that it was difficult to imagine that whatever human resource produced was the resource of the community.
‘Don’t live in isolation’
The top law officer for the government said that human beings do not live in isolation.
“All of us live in transactions and inter-relations. The wealth we create, the value we create are all by interactions and activities in a community,” Mr. Venkataramani replied.
To this, the Chief Justice asked whether resources created by corporations, like semiconductor chips or mobile phones, were resources of the community. Mr. Venkataramani responded in the affirmative.
He submitted that “both resources available in nature and resources made by human interaction are of utility, value and relevant for human purposes that Article 39(b) has in mind ownership and control”.
He defined “community” as a set of people adhering to an organised way of life in a given locality”.
“At a time when economic scarcity was to be dealt with, control of trade and commerce in several essential commodities were all for the common good of the entire country,” Mr. Venkataramani submitted.
He said the term ‘ownership’ would include title and absolute discretions on the use of property or a resource. ‘Control’ would extend to elements of regulation and could extend up to prohibition.
However, the Attorney General distinguished between ‘material’ and ‘non-material’ resources.
“Non-material resources, however, are not contemplated in Article 39(b). For example, culture or literature are non-material resources that the state can enter and control. Anything else is a material resource,” he argued.
He said the distinction should be between material and non-material resources while contemplating Article 39 (b).
Article 39(b) in Part IV of the Constitution came within the ambit of the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) “aimed at securing social and economic freedoms by appropriate State action”. They were unlike the Fundamental Rights enshrined in Part III of the Constitution intended to assure political freedom to citizens by protecting them against excessive State action.
Article 31C holds that laws giving effect to DPSP cannot be deemed void on the ground that they are inconsistent with or abridges or take away Fundamental Rights.
Mr. Venkataramani said Article 39 was best understood as a “combination of social, economic and political principles”. They were “interlocked with fundamental rights”. They formed the “feel of the times”.
“While fundamental rights provide for a saner society, DPSP is a road map for a better world”, he noted.
The reference before the Constitution Bench is based on petitions filed by parties including the Property Owners Association (POA) that private properties cannot be taken over by the state under the garb of constitutional schemes of Articles 39 (b) and 31 C of the Constitution.
At least 16 petitions were heard by the Bench. The lead plea filed by POA dated back to 1992. They were referred thrice to larger Benches of five and seven judges before being referred to a nine-judge Bench on February 20, 2002.
