Interesting Facts to Remember about - Right to property

The Constitution originally provided for the right to property under Articles 19 and 31. Article 19 guaranteed to all citizens the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property. Article 31 provided that "no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law."

It also provided that compensation would be paid to a person whose property has been taken for public purposes. The provisions relating to the right to property were changed a number of times.

The 44th Amendment of 1978 removed the right to property from the list of fundamental rights.A new provision, Article 300-A, was added to the constitution, which provided that "no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law".

Thus, if a legislator made a law depriving a person of his property, there would be no obligation on the part of the State to pay anything as compensation.

Furthermore, the aggrieved person would also have no right to move the court under Article 32 due to the right to property no longer being a fundamental right, though it would still be a constitutional one.

If the government appeared to have acted unfairly, the action could have been challenged in a court of law by aggrieved citizens before the amendment.

The liberalisation of the economy and the government's initiative to set up special economic zones has led to many protests by farmers and have led to calls for the reinstatement of the fundamental right to private property.

The Supreme Court had sent a notice to the government questioning why the right should not be brought back, but in 2010, the Court rejected the PIL.