Article 300 A of Indian Constitution

 ARTICLE 300 A OF INDIAN CONSTITUTION

Right to Property is no longer a Fundamental Right rather it is a Constitutional Right and now exists in Article 300A. Article 300A states that - No person shall be deprived of his property save by the authority of law. Therefore, the Article protects an individual from interference by the State and dispossess a person of the property unless it is in accordance with the procedure established by law.

Though compensation is not expressly mentioned in the Article, in K.T Plantation Pvt. Ltd. Vs. State of Karnataka, 2011 the SC held that public purpose was a pre-condition for deprivation of a person of his property under Article 300A of the Constitution and the right to claim compensation was also inbuilt in that Article. In the case, the then CJI S.H. Kapadia said that -“The requirement of public purpose is invariably the rule for depriving a person of his property, violation of which is amenable to judicial review. Acquisition of property for a public purpose may meet with a lot of contingencies, like deprivation of livelihood, leading to violation of Article 21, but that per se is not a ground to strike down a statute or its provisions.” Notes on Article 300A

If the State intends to appropriate private property without the owner’s consent by acting under statutory provisions for compulsory acquisition, the procedure authorized by law has to be mandatorily and compulsorily followed.

In State of Jharkhand vs. Jitendra Kumar Srivastava, 2013, the SC held that pension is not a bounty but it is a property and cannot be taken away without complying with due process of law.

The right to property includes within it the right to use the property in accordance with the law as it stands at a particular time.

In Tukaram Kana Joshi vs M.I.D.C, 2013 the SC said that human rights are a domain under individual rights and are gaining a bigger multi-faceted dimension and the Right to property is a part of this new dimension.

Section 29 of the State Finance Corporations Act 1951 deals with Rights of Financial Corporation in case of default. The corporation has the power to take possession of the property of an individual concerned if the latter defaults on payment of any loan or advance or any installment and such an action of possession is not violative of Articles 14, 19, 21 or 300A of the constitution.

17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) enshrines 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. The object of the right to property as it is usually understood nowadays consists of property already owned or possessed, or of property acquired or to be acquired by a person through lawful means. Not in opposition but in contrast to this, some proposals also defend a universal right to private property, in the sense of a right of every person to effectively receive a certain amount of property, grounded in a claim to Earth's natural resources or other theories of justice.

DOCTRINE OF ADVERSE POSESSION

It is a legal doctrine that allows a person who possesses or resides on someone else's land for an extended period of time to claim legal title to that land. In India, a person who is not the original owner of a property becomes the owner because of the fact that he has been in possession of the property for a minimum of 12-years, within which the real owner did not seek legal recourse to oust him.

ARTICLE 142

It provides discretionary power to the Supreme Court as it states that the Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it. 

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 Bench referred to an earlier verdict in State of Haryana v. Mukesh Kumar case (2011) wherein it was held that the right to property is not only a constitutional or statutory right, but also a human right. Doctrine of Adverse Possession: 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. In 1967, when the government took over the land, right to private property was still a Fundamental Right under Article 31 of the Constitution. Right to Property ceased to be a Fundamental Right with the 44th Constitution Amendment in 1978. It was made a Constitutional right under Article 300-A. Article 300-A requires the state to follow due procedure and authority of law to deprive a person of his or her private property.