Judicial sparring over a missing phrase in final judgment

A landmark 7:2 verdict of the Supreme Court recently held that not all private properties form part of material resources of the community that can be taken over for distribution to serve the common good under the Constitution.

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It provided a definitive interpretation of Article 39(b), which specifies "that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good".

The verdict settled an important legal question on the rights of individuals against the state's authority to control resources for public good.

The then Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud authored the 193-page majority judgment on behalf of six others.

The majority judgment did not agree with the erudite view expressed by Justice V R Krishna Iyer in the case of Ranganatha Reddy of 1978 wherein he held that private properties could be regarded as community resources.