Right to inherit by Hindu woman granted retrospectively: Supreme Court

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As per the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 ("the Act"), only the sons of a Hindu family to inherit their father's property. This provision was cited as discriminatory as it clearly established that daughters had no right to inherit the property even though they were also born in the same house. For more than four decades this law was practiced diligently without any interference. 

In 2005, the Parliament amended Section 6 of the Act stating that apart from the son the daughter also has a right to inherit her family's property. The law gave the daughter the same rights in the coparcenary property as the sons of the Hindu family. This law applies to ancestral property and intestate succession. There were many judgments related to this section that conflicted with each other. The confusion was whether the daughter could inherit the property if her father died before 9th September 2005 and this Section did not mention this specifically which led to conflicting judgments.

For example, in 2015 a judgment was passed wherein the daughter was not allowed her right to inherit her father's property because her father passed away before 9th September 2005. But in 2018 another judgment was passed wherein the daughters were granted the right to inherit their father's property even though he died in 2001.

Due to these conflicting judgments, there was a dire need for a decision to be made which would settle the law once and for all.  So in a landmark judgment by the Supreme Court, it was held that the daughters will have equal rights in the coparcenary property irrespective of the fact whether the father was alive on or before 9th September 2005. The court stated that Section 6 provides for equal rights to the property for daughters who are born on or before the amendment and that the daughters have an unobstructed heritage on the father's property. 

Further, it was held that oral partitions are not acceptable but can be accepted only by the support of public documents. A deed of partition has to be made mandated so that daughters are not deprived of their rights to the property. Statutory fiction of partition does not come under an actual partition so the new provision has to be implemented.

To summarise, the court has held daughters' right over their father's property to have a retrospective effect as well.


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