Supreme Court : Right of daughters in father’s earning property

The Supreme Court of the country has been playing the important role of turning the public according to the new age. In this episode, the Supreme Court has given a big decision on Thursday regarding the right of daughters in the father’s own earning properties. The country’s top court has held the daughters of a Hindu family to be more entitled to the property of the father than their brothers or any other family in the event that the father has not made a will and dies. Let us know in detail what the Supreme Court has said in its decision and what will change after the new decision comes…

What did the Supreme Court say
In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court held that daughters of a Hindu man who died without a will would be entitled to the father’s self-acquired and other property and would have precedence over other members of the family. A bench of Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Krishna Murari said that if a Hindu man has not made a will and dies, his sons and daughters will have equal rights both in the inherited property and the property acquired by him.

Whoever does not have a brother, he will also get the property of his father
The court made it clear that if a Hindu man does not have a son and dies without a will, his daughter’s right over his inheritance and self-acquired properties will be greater than that of her cousin. The Court said this because under the concept of Coparcenary and Survivorship in the Mitakshara law, after the death of a Hindu man, his property will be divided only among the sons and if there is no son, then among the men of the joint family.

To understand this in detail, we have to understand the legal meaning of Coparcenary, Survivorship and Inheritance. So let’s understand one by one…

Coparcenary: The right to share property in a Hindu joint family means that on the death of a man, his widow or daughter will not get any right in his property. Only the sons will have the right over the property of the deceased. If the deceased has no son, then his brother’s sons will have this right.

Survivorship: The concept of survival is also mentioned in the same Mitakshara law, which says that the heir should be the same and increase the lineage. That is, the man’s heir will be the man because the daughters go to others after marriage. In such a situation, only the sons can have the right over the property of the father, not the daughters.

The second rule is that the property of the deceased will be divided among the three descendants of the deceased. Meaning if the deceased has one son and two grandchildren, then one-third of the property will be divided equally among the three. Meanwhile, if one of the grandsons dies, then the property will be divided in half between the son and the surviving grandson. Thus, under the coparcenary law, the amount of property in the family keeps on increasing or decreasing on the basis of birth and death. This concept of participation is described under the Mitakshara law.

Inheritance: Succession refers to the children of the father, whether sons or daughters. In the year 2005, the same concept was implemented by amending the Hindu Succession Act that after the death of the father, sons and daughters would have equal rights under the concept of succession, not survivorship.

Old disputes will be resolved with the latest order
Now again the matter of the latest order of the Supreme. The biggest thing is that the new decision will be implemented from the back date. The Supreme Court has clearly said that its order will also apply to those daughters whose father died before 1956. In fact, in 1956 itself, under the Hindu Personal Law, the Hindu Succession Act was enacted, under which the legal framework for the distribution of properties among Hindu families was prepared. The latest order of the Supreme Court may ignite disputes over the distribution of property before 1956 in which daughters have not been given share in father’s property.

Whether there is a will or not, if there is no son, then only the daughter has the right.
The Supreme Court bench has clarified another position in the latest order. Justice Krishna Murari, in his 51-page order, also answered the question whether the daughter would automatically inherit the property if the father dies without a testament or will it be passed on to her cousin under the concept of Survivorship. will get the right. The court made it clear that in the case the father’s own acquired property would go to the only daughter as the law of inheritance or inheritance would apply here and not of survival, even if the father was then in a joint family and did not die. No Will has been made before.

Understand the formula for distribution of property on the death of a Hindu woman
The court made it clear that the right to property for a woman cannot be confined to her life. If he made a will in his life, then after his death, the inheritance of his property would be handed over on the basis of the will, that is, the property would be divided between the parts in which he had expressed his desire to give his property in the will. If the woman dies without a will, the property received from her parents will go to the heirs of her parents and the property received from the husband or father-in-law will go to the heirs of the husband. The court said, “The very object of section (15) (2) of the Hindu Succession Act is that if a Hindu woman dies without making a will, her property is returned to her source (from where it was received). .’

The bench said, “Under the 1956 Act, if a woman Hindu dies without making a will, the property inherited by her from her parents shall pass to the heirs of her parents, that is, to the siblings of the deceased woman, while the husband Or the property received from father-in-law will go to the heirs of her husband.’

Supreme Court reverses the decision of Madras High Court
The Supreme Court’s decision comes on an appeal filed against a Madras High Court judgment that pertained to property rights to Hindu women and widows under the Hindu Succession Act. The bench was looking into the legal issue relating to the right of the daughter to take over her father’s self-acquired property in the absence of any other legal heir. The top court said that the self-acquired property of a person, who died in 1949, shall be transferred to his only daughter, even if the person is residing in a joint family, and the brother of the deceased person and his children after his death. could not be transferred on the basis of Survival Act 1956.

Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh Applicable to all
Justice Murari said, referring to the Smritis, it is clear that in the ancient Laws and Smritis also the things which have been said by various scholars and also in all the court judgments, some of them are related to the rights of women heirs, wives and daughters. has been recognized. The court, while pronouncing the verdict, referred to the laws of the traditional Mitakshara and Dayabhaga schools as well as the Murumakkathayam, Aliyasantana and Namboodiri laws. He said that to whomever these laws apply, the new decision will be applicable. The court clearly said, ‘This law is applicable to every sect of Hindus whether it is Vaishnav, Lingayat, Brahmo Prarthana Samaj or Arya Samaj. Along with this, it also applies to every person of Buddhist, Jain and Sikh society. If anyone is left out of this, then it can only be a Muslim, a Christian, a Parsi or a person of Judaism.’

How is the latest judgment different from the August 2020 order?
The Supreme Court had passed an order in August 2020 that daughters will have the same right of succession as sons in the property of father, grandfather and great-grandfather. The court had legalized this law in an order from 1956 when the Hindu Personal Law came into existence. But, the latest decision has pushed its deadline even further than 1956.

Another order in the string of tough and big decisions
In fact, in a democratic system, the necessity of changing the rules and regulations according to the needs of the times cannot be ignored. It is a different matter that sometimes the entire population of a country does not fully agree in favor of any change. There may be a small section opposing every decision, every change, but there is a section. Despite this, the leading democratic institutions have to take tough and big decisions in the larger public interest. Supreme Court also takes such decisions from time to time.