RAS question
Article 300A provides for:
Correct answer: (D) Right to property as a legal right (not fundamental right).
Article 300A makes the right to property a legal right, not a Fundamental Right, by saying that no person may be deprived of property except by authority of law.
Explanation
Article 300A provides that no person shall be deprived of his property except by authority of law. That is why the right answer is the right to property as a legal right, not a Fundamental Right. The Forty-fourth Amendment changed the constitutional status of property: it removed property from the Fundamental Rights framework by deleting the earlier property protections from Articles 19(1)(f) and 31, while adding Article 300A to preserve a legal safeguard. The point is not that the State can take property at will; it must act under lawful authority. For RAS, the trap is the older memory that property was once a Fundamental Right. After the Forty-fourth Amendment, the protection remains constitutional in text, but it is no longer a Fundamental Right.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) It describes the pre-amendment position; after the Forty-fourth Amendment, property ceased to be a Fundamental Right.
- (B) Article 300A limits deprivation of property to action backed by authority of law; it is not a blanket statement of government power to acquire any property.
- (C) The amendment did not abolish all property rights, because Article 300A was inserted to retain protection against deprivation without lawful authority.
Concept
This tests the constitutional classification of rights after the Forty-fourth Amendment. It recurs in RAS because Article 300A is a standard example of a right moving out of Part III while retaining legal protection.