Land reforms must be fair

Kameshwar Singh v. State of Bihar was no ordinary case,and Singh8217;s lawyer no ordinary one. In striking the first blow in favour of property rights,the judgment terrified Jawaharlal Nehru enough for him to pass the 1st Amendment to the Constitution,aimed at insulating the government8217;s property redistribution laws from court interference. And the lawyer for zamindar Kameshwar Singh? The man who convinced the court of the value of property rights was none other than veteran communist Somnath Chatterjees father,N.C. Chatterjee.

Born in 1895,N.C. Chatterjee served the country as a lawyer,judge and as a Member of Parliament. Somnath Chatterjee recalls of his father: For his legal acumen,he was appointed by Prime Minister Shastri Lal Bahadur Shastri as one of the leading counsels to represent India before the Kutch Tribunal in Geneva. He was appointed by the central government to be the Chairman of Refugee Rehabilitation Review Committee to look into the problems of refugee rehabilitation and the report submitted by him showed his great concern for the hapless millions who had come to India for reasons beyond their control. He was later appointed a judge of the Calcutta High Court in 1948.

Chatterjee was a master of company law and his book on this subject is still considered as a classic. His other books on comparative jurisprudence and Indian Constitution Law have become strong references.

N.C. Chatterjees advocacy of property rights was part of an early ideology he was to abandon later. He joined the Hindu Mahasabha in 1939 but later resigned from the party because of differences of opinion.