Land rights

Land rights

Subject: Polity

Context: To a query on whether it is a fact that the government has recognised the land rights as human rights, Singh said that as per inputs provided by the home ministry, there is no document in custody which shows that  land rights has been recognised as human rights.

Concept:

There is no document in custody which shows that land rights has been recognised as human rights.
As per Section 2(d) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, ‘human rights’ means the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution of India or embodied in the international covenants and enforceable by courts in India.

Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states:

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Supreme Courts View

• The Supreme Court has recently held that a citizen’s right to own private property is a human right and the state cannot take possession of it without following due procedure and authority 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.
• In a welfare state, right to property is a human right.
• 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.

Right to Property:

• ‘Right to private property was previously 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 right to property is now considered to be not only a constitutional or statutory right, but also a human right.