13-Jan-2020: Private property is a human right; Supreme Court of India
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 Supreme Court held in a judgment.
On 8 January 2020, the Supreme Court of India in its landmark decision of Vidya Devi v The State of Himachal Pradesh and Others held that the state could not be permitted to perfect its title over land by invoking the doctrine of adverse possession to usurp the property of its own citizens, without taking recourse to acquisition proceedings or following due procedure of law.
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.
A welfare state cannot be permitted to take the plea of adverse possession, which allows a trespasser i.e. a person guilty of a tort, or even a crime, to gain legal title over such property for over 12 years. The State cannot be permitted to perfect its title over the land by invoking the doctrine of adverse possession to grab the property of its own citizens.
The Himachal Pradesh government forcibly took over four acres 52 years ago from Vidya Devi, a widow at Hamipur district to build a road in 1967. Justice Malhotra highlights how the state took advantage of Ms. Devi’s illiteracy and failed to pay her a compensation for 52 years.
Ms. Devi first learnt about her right for compensation in 2010 from her neighbours who had also lost their property to the road. Then, in her 70s, she did not lose time to march straight to the Himachal Pradesh High Court, accompanied by her daughter, to join her neighbours in their fight against the state. But the High Court asked her to file a civil suit in the lower court. Disappointed, Ms. Devi moved the Supreme Court.
Ordering the state to pay her ₹1 crore in compensation, the Supreme Court noted that in 1967, when the government forcibly took over Ms. Devi’s land, ‘right to private property was still a fundamental right’ under Article 31 of the Constitution. Property ceased to be a fundamental right with the 44th Constitution Amendment in 1978. Nevertheless, Article 300A required the state to follow due procedure and authority of law to deprive a person of his or her private property, the Supreme Court reminded the government.