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Right to property and judicial findings Article-300-A
The constitution of India provides several rights to the citizen of India and more importantly part 3 of the Constitution i.e the fundamental rights. The framers of the Constitution were very clear about securing the rights of the citizens and providing some duties that should be abided by the citizens to keep up the very spirit of the constitution. When the constitution was made there were several fundamental rights under part 3, one of those rights was the right to property under article 31 of the Constitution. Article 31 originally provided that “no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law”. The right to property was one of the most controversial rights that existed for human beings both in terms of its interpretation existence. The constitution of India has been amended several times in history and the right to property article 31 was transferred to article 300A by the 44th amendment Act 1978. this right is not only provided under the constitution of India but also provided by many e other bodies such as Article 17 of the universal declaration of human Rights describes that the right to property as follows “Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.” In India in the case of the state of Haryana vs Mukesh Kumar, it was held that right to property is not only a legal or a constitutional right but also stated as a human right the three important things for the existence of the human being are food shelter and clothes, therefore, the universal declaration of human Rights describes the right to property is an essential right for a human being and the object of the right to property is for a good human surviving. Therefore the right to property was included in the constitution as a fundamental right under article 31 but then it was amended and placed under article 300-A by the 44th amendment Act. The amendment omitted article 31 and article 19 (1)(f) and then inserted the same provisions under article 300A. There have been several cases regarding the same right whether the right to property is a constitutional right or the fundamental right, in the case of IR Coelho V/S state of Tamil Nadu a three-judge bench of the apex court ruled that “right not to deprive of property save by authority of law is no longer a fundamental right but only are right which is provided by the constitution which can never be treated and should not be treated as the basic structure of the Constitution.” later in the case of good governance India foundation V/S Union of India, again full bench of the Supreme Court headed by the then Chief Justice of India Justice S.H.KAPADIA, the court dismissed public interest litigation seeking directions by the court that right to property must be a fundamental right. Therefore the right to property is held as a human as well as a constitutional right, which means right to property will be available against the executive interference but not against the legislative action i.e the property cannot be forfeited from the owner by the state without following due process established by law and by the concerned authorities.
