In Chapter Seven, the book deals with Nambyar’s argument on the controversial take by the government on the right to property (initially a fundamental right) through enactments of the First, Fourth and Seventeenth Amendments.
Rather than just legal arguments, the chapter paints the viewpoints of various leaders on land reforms in the context of the Nehruvian socialistic model adopted by the welfare state. Nambyar, once again in the fray, resists the Leviathan elements of the State and calls for clarity in actions and constitutional probity while enacting the reforms by paying heed to the fundamentality of organic whole fundamental rights, linking it with the principle of right to life, livelihood and human dignity.
In all these legal arguments, the part I most thoroughly enjoyed was the microscopic view of land relations in Kerala. The caste-class system of jenmis, kanamkars and verumpattoms, coupled with the British Ryotwari system. How Nambyar’s arguments and the parallel landmark judgments in the Shankari Prasad Case, the Atma Ram Case, the Karambil Kunhikoman Case and the Sajjan Singh Case defined the positionality of the State vis-a-vis amendability i.e Article 368 of Part Three of the Constitution, is superbly illustrated in this chapter.
Source: Barandbench
