Article 31 was a provision in Part III of the Constitution of India, which originally guaranteed the Right to Property as a Fundamental Right. It was created when the Constitution came into force in 1950. The original Article 31 contained two main clauses: Clause (1) stated that no person could be deprived of their property except by authority of law, and Clause (2) mandated that property could only be acquired for a public purpose under a law that provided for compensation. This provision became a major obstacle to the government's post-independence agenda, particularly the abolition of the Zamindari system and other land reforms, as courts often struck down laws for not providing "adequate" compensation.
To solve this problem, Parliament introduced several amendments, including the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, which added Article 31A to shield land reform laws from challenge on the grounds of violating Article 14 or Article 19. The Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955, further diluted the right by making the adequacy of compensation non-justiciable. The constant conflict between the state's need for social engineering and the individual's fundamental right to property led to its eventual removal.
Article 31 was entirely omitted from the Constitution by the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978, which was enacted by the Morarji Desai government. This amendment also removed the related Article 19(1)(f), which guaranteed the right to acquire, hold, and dispose of property. The right to property was not abolished but was instead converted from a Fundamental Right into a constitutional legal right. The core principle of Article 31(1)—that no person shall be deprived of property save by authority of law—was relocated to Article 300A in Part XII of the Constitution. This change meant that a citizen could no longer directly approach the Supreme Court under Article 32 for the enforcement of the right to property, but the state must still follow due process of law before acquiring private property.