In 2011 the Supreme Court refused the State of Haryana's suit to be declared owner of a citizen's land by adverse possession, restored possession to the owner, and delivered a sweeping critique of the doctrine as irrational and disproportionate — reaffirming the right to property as a constitutional and human right.
On 2 November 2012, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that even after the 44th Constitutional Amendment removed property from the list of fundamental rights, the right to property survives as both a human right in a welfare State and a constitutional right under Article 300A. The State had taken the appellants' land without acquisition or compensation; forcible dispossession without due process, the Court held, is unconstitutional — and the State cannot escape behind the very delay its own default produced.