SC ruling on properties puts wealth distribution debate in focus again

NEW DELHI: The verdict by a nine-judge Supreme Court bench on Tuesday where the apex court held that the concept of 'material resources' of the community could not be extend to cover assets of private citizens has once again shone the spotlight on the debate that raged during this year's Lok Sabha elections.

The build-up to the campaign saw Congress leader Rahul Gandhi pitching for 'jitni aabadi, utna haq' which envisaged equitable distribution of community assets among different castes based on their respective share in the population to be ascertained by a caste-wise enumeration.

His colleague, Sam Pitroda, also spoke approvingly of the 'inheritance tax' in the US where more than half of the wealth of the rich gets transferred to the govt after their death. "That is an interesting law. It says you in your generation made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair," Pitroda had said while noting the absence of a similar law in India.

This sparked a fight with BJP, with PM Narendra Modi slamming Congress's advocacy for wealth redistribution. In public meetings, he claimed that the proposal needed to be read along with former PM Manmohan Singh's thesis about minorities, especially Muslims, having the first right on national resources, which he said was a pursuit of vote bank politics in disguise. Congress refuted the charge.

The govt's stand in the court was centred on drawing a distinction between a welfare state and the Marxian conception of community having the right to acquire the assets of individual citizens for its version of "larger interest".

"In essence, the court has held that while Article 39(b) envisages distribution of material resources of the community for the common good, it would be hazardous to assume that such provisions allow commuting the entire national wealth by totalling the wealth of every citizen and distributing it equally among a particular section. The court has accepted the approach put forth by the Union govt and the Maharashtra govt," a govt source explained.

A wider conception of what constitutes material resources of the community and whether it should extend to limit, even negate, right to private property was the source of many legal battles between the judiciary and an executive influenced by the socialistic pattern of community ownership of resources and the idea of interests of the community getting precedence over those of the individual citizen. The idea lost its sheen after the collapse of the Soviet Union and because of China's embrace of markets and because of economic liberalisation pursued by successive govts in India, beginning the 1990s.

It was after a long gap that the issue figured in the political discourse, with Congress espousing it in the run-up to the campaign.