Art 39(b) limited by laws framed by Parliament and assemblies: Centre in SC

Dhananjay.MahapatraNew Delhi: Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for Union and Maharashtra govts, told Supreme Court on Wednesday that the application of Article 39(b), which mandates state policies to aim for an egalitarian society by distributing material resources of the community to subserve common good, was limited by the laws framed by Parliament and assemblies to enact appropriate legislations to achieve the goal.Mehta said Article 39(b) indirectly admitted the limitations of the generation of the day to fully fathom the nature and character of future dynamics of economic situations the country would face and, hence, left it to the legislature to deal with such situations appropriately to enable govt to adopt welfare measures and distribute material resources as best as possible for the common good.Before the nine-judge bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices Hrishikesh Roy, B V Nagarathna, S Dhulia, J B Pardiwala, Manoj Misra, R Bindal, S C Sharma and AG Masih reserved verdict on the contentious issue, Mehta said the term ‘community’, used in Article 39(b), must be understood not in the colloquial way but in its wider sense of society in general.“Article 39(b) envisages a national goal for the welfare state to strive for an egalitarian society/nation and proposes its use as a tool by the legislature to enact legislations for distribution of ‘material resources’, whether owned by govt, community or individuals, to subserve the greater common good of citizens, community or even a village,” he said.Mehta argued that since the future dynamics were unfathomable, the provision in directive principles of state policy chapter of the Constitution left it entirely to the legislature to decide what should constitute material resources at a given point of time and the manner of their distribution. Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for West Bengal, gave examples of land, water, forests and several other resources that could be acquired, even if privately owned, by the state for distribution of their benefits to the community at large.Dwivedi said, “Various expressions in these clauses of Article 39 have been used in the context of the operation of the economic system and the idea is to ensure that all the material resources are used to best subserve the common good, and to see that they do not cause common detriment.“These provisions are basically intended to operate with respect to material resources in the hands of private persons so as to ensure common good and not common detriment.”