What is the nature of the ‘Right to Property’ under the Indian Constitution?

Question: What is the nature of the ‘Right to Property’ under the Indian Constitution? [RJS 2011]

Find the answer to the mains question only on Legal Bites. [What is the nature of the ‘Right to Property’ under the Indian Constitution?]

Answer

In India, the right to property was once considered as a fundamental right, but later it was scrapped down and became merely a constitutional right by the 44th amendment of the constitution, under the provision of Article 300A.

Article 300A was inserted in the Constitution to fulfil this purpose and according to this provision; a person’s right to property cannot be abridged unless the government prescribes a reasonable procedure for the same by way of an enactment. The Supreme Court has also made it clear that the executive cannot deprive a person of his right to property without the authority of law. The State can acquire a person’s property for public purpose on payment of compensation, which need not be necessarily just equivalent of the value of the property so acquired, but such compensation must not be illusory and irrationally disproportionate.

The latest position with regard to the nature of the right to property under the Indian Constitution is well expressed by the Supreme Court of India in Indian Handicraft Emporium v. Union of India, wherein the Court observed that right to property is a human right as a constitutional right under Article 300-A, but it is not a fundamental right. It is indeed a Statutory right but each and every claim to property would not be property rights.

Further, in Vidya Devi v. The State Of Himachal Pradesh, on 8 January 2020; Civil Appeal No. 6061/2020, the SC while delivering the judgment said that a citizen’s right to own private property is a human right. The state cannot take possession of it without following due procedure and authority of law; the state cannot trespass into the private property of a citizen and then claim ownership of the land in the name of ‘adverse possession. Grabbing private land and then claiming it as its own makes the state an encroacher’

---

Important Mains Questions Series for Judiciary, APO & University Exams

1. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-I
2. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-I
3. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-II
4. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-IV
5. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-V
6. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-VI
7. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-VII
8. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-VIII
9. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-IX
10. Constitutional Law Mains Questions Series Part-X