The Common Law in India - College of Social Sciences and ...

216 The Common Law in Indiainadequate and even illusory. Payment of compensationin the sense of a proper market value was,in the circumstances of the country, not practicable.The courts, faced with the task of interpreting what" compensation" in the constitutional provisionmeant, could only answer by stating that the expropriatedowner must be paid the market value of hisinterest. These decisions were followed immediatelyby an amendment of the Constitution which in substancetook away the powers of the courts to adjudgethe compensation and made the legislative judgmentas to the adequacy of the compensation final. Thuswas removed a difficulty created by a constitutionalprovision in the way of urgently needed changes inthe agrarian pattern in some parts of the country.The last of the freedoms is the right to practisea profession and to carry on an occupation, trade orbusiness. The right is to be subject to restrictionsimposed in the interests of the general public andparticularly to the carrying on by the state of anytrade, business, industry or service. The provisionenabling state monopolies to be established wasbrought in by an amendment of the Constitution,the courts having held that, though the state mayregulate the enjoyment of these rights, it could notaltogether prohibit their exercise.Each of the freedoms we have discussed is, as wehave seen, subject to legislative restrictions providedthey are reasonable and imposed in the interests ofthe general public. The phrase " in the interestsof the general public" reminds us of Blackstone:" Political ... or civil liberty is no other than