The Supreme Court on Thursday took a significant step to protect private property from arbitrary state takeover for a “public purpose”, holding that compulsory acquisition without following mandatory procedures followed by a grant of compensation to the owners will not make the accession constitutional.
The right to property is protected as a constitutional right and has even been interpreted to be a human right, a Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Aravind Kumar declared in a judgment.
“It is generally assumed that for a valid acquisition all that is necessary is to possess the power of eminent domain [power of the sovereign to acquire property of an individual for public use without consent] to acquire, followed by grant of reasonable and fair compensation… Compulsory acquisition will still be unconstitutional if proper procedure is not established and followed before depriving a person of his/her right to property,” Justice Narasimha, who authored the verdict, observed.
