Two judges object to CJI's view on justice Krishna Iyer doctrine

NEW DELHI: The momentous ruling by the Supreme Court on property rights and the interpretation of "material resources of the community" under Article 39 of the Constitution did not just involve intense legal debate on the evolving economic landscape of India, but also revealed a stark division among the judges on the nine-judge bench.

- Utkarsh Anand

While Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, in a majority opinion that he authored for himself and six other judges, criticised earlier judgments for their perceived economic biases and ideologies, justices BV Nagarathna and Sudhanshu Dhulia vehemently defended the historical context of those rulings, branding the majority's assessment as "unwarranted" and "harsh." The majority judgment asserted that prior interpretations by justices Krishna Iyer in State of Karnataka Vs Ranganatha Reddy (1977) and O Chinnappa Reddy in the Sanjeev Coke case (1982) -which included privately owned property within the ambit of "material resources of the community"--were flawed.

In the Ranganatha Reddy case, a seven-judge bench considered the application of Article 39(b) in the context of nationalisation of contract carriages. The majority view of four judges did not favour private property to fall under Article 39(b). However, the minority view pronounced by justice Iyer held to the contrary. Justice Iyer said: "Material resources of the community in the context of reordering the national economy embraces all the national wealth, not merely natural resources, all the private and public sources of meeting material needs, not merely public possessions... To exclude ownership of private resources from the coils of Article 39(b) is to cipherise its very purpose of redistribution the socialist way." This minority view later became the basis of a five-judge bench decision in the Sanjeev Coke case where the issue of Article 39(b) arose in the context of nationalisation of coke oven plants. Justice Reddy held private property to be part of material resources of community.