The Supreme Court is set to deliver its judgment on two significant issues on Tuesday. The first concerns whether private property falls within the definition of “material resources of the community” under Article 39(b) of the Constitution, and the second involves appeals challenging the Allahabad High Court’s verdict that declared the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education Act, 2004, unconstitutional.
The nine-judge Constitution bench, led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, reserved its verdict on the private property issue on May 1. During the hearing, the bench, which also included Justices Hrishikesh Roy, B.V. Nagarathna, Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.B. Pardiwala, Manoj Misra, Rajesh Bindal, Satish Chandra Sharma, and Augustine George Masih, expressed concerns that labeling every private resource as part of the material resources of the community could deter investment. The Court noted that such a broad interpretation would be “far-fetched” and could scare away investors due to uncertainties regarding the protection of their assets.
The reference to the nine-judge bench arose from differing views expressed in a 1978 Supreme Court decision (State of Karnataka vs Shri Ranganatha Reddy). In that case, one opinion by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer suggested that both publicly and privately owned resources, including natural and man-made, could be considered part of the material resources of the community. However, a conflicting opinion by Justice N.L. Untwalia noted that the majority of judges did not subscribe to this view. Justice Iyer’s stance was later affirmed in the 1982 case, Sanjeev Coke Manufacturing Co. vs Bharat Coking Coal Ltd.
Article 39(b) of the Directive Principles of State Policy states that “the State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good.”
On the second issue, the Uttar Pradesh government defended the constitutional validity of the Madrasa Education Act, asserting that only the unconstitutional provisions should have been examined, not the entire Act. Chief Justice Chandrachud commented that while the state has an interest in maintaining standards in religious education, invalidating the entire Act could be an overreach. He suggested that it might be possible to address the problematic provisions without discarding the entire law.
