Not Every Private Resource Is a 'Material Resource of the Community' Under Article 39(b): Nine-Judge Bench Majority

Chapter VIII-A, added to the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act, 1976 in 1986, allows old cessed buildings in Mumbai to be acquired and transferred to co-operative societies of occupiers on payment of a hundred times the monthly rent, and Section 1A declares that the Act gives effect to Article 39(b) (Chandrachud CJI, paras 10, 12). The Bombay High Court upheld Chapter VIII-A as saved by Article 31C (Chandrachud CJI, para 14). On appeal, Benches of three (1996), five (2001) and seven (2002) Judges referred questions on Article 31C and Article 39(b), the last to nine Judges (Chandrachud CJI, paras 16-25). The validity of the Act was left to a regular Bench (Chandrachud CJI, para 32).

As Section 4 of the Forty-Second Amendment was a substitution, its invalidation in Minerva Mills left the unamended Article 31C, as far as upheld in Kesavananda Bharati, in force (Chandrachud CJI, paras 69, 71). Sanjeev Coke erred in relying on Krishna Iyer J.'s minority opinion in Ranganatha Reddy, which the four-Judge majority expressly declined to endorse (Chandrachud CJI, paras 104-105). Mafatlal's one-line observation was obiter dicta (Chandrachud CJI, para 127). The words 'material' and 'of the community' cannot be made otiose: privately owned resources are not excluded as a class, but not all are covered (Chandrachud CJI, paras 211-212). Covering all private property would endorse one economic ideology and clash with the constitutional protection of property (Chandrachud CJI, paras 213, 220). Relevant factors include the resource's nature, scarcity, community impact and private concentration; the Public Trust Doctrine may assist (Chandrachud CJI, paras 222, 224). Nagarathna J. held that a private resource must first enter the community's pool, as by acquisition or nationalisation, and called the criticism of Krishna Iyer J. unwarranted (Nagarathna J., paras 5.9, 9.1-9.2). Dhulia J. held the wide meaning in Ranganatha Reddy and Sanjeev Coke correct, leaving its application to the legislature (Dhulia J., paras 48-49).