High Court clarifies when daughters can't claim rights in father's property - key legal condition explained

The Chhattisgarh precocious tribunal has ruled that a girl cannot assertion a stock successful her deceased father’s spot if helium passed distant earlier the enforcement of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.

The tribunal said that successful specified cases, succession is governed by the Mitakshara Law, which was successful effect earlier the 1956 authorities and recognised lone sons arsenic ineligible heirs to a father’s property.The ruling came successful a 2nd entreaty filed by the ineligible heirs of 1 Ragmania, who had sought a stock successful the property of her father, Sudhin, a nonmigratory of Surguja district. The precocious tribunal noted that Sudhin had died astir 1950–51, respective years earlier the 1956 instrumentality was enacted.

Since his decease had opened the enactment of succession astatine that time, the spot would devolve according to the pre-Hindu Succession Act rules.“When a Hindu governed by Mitakshara Law died earlier 1956, his abstracted spot would wholly devolve upon his son. A pistillate kid could assertion a close successful specified spot lone successful the lack of a antheral child,” the tribunal saidWhat it meansThe ruling clarifies that if a begetter died earlier the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 came into force, daughters cannot inherit his spot nether the modern law.

Such cases volition proceed to beryllium governed by the pre-1956 Mitakshara Hindu Law, which gives inheritance penchant to antheral heirs.Legal backgroundBefore 1956, inheritance among Hindus was mostly governed by 2 accepted systems — the Mitakshara and Dayabhaga schools of law. Under Mitakshara, which prevailed crossed astir of India, spot ownership was typically patriarchal, with sons holding coparcenary rights from birth.

Daughters were excluded unless nary antheral heir existed.The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 changed this model by codifying inheritance rights and, decades later, was amended successful 2005 to assistance daughters adjacent coparcenary rights arsenic sons. However, courts person repeatedly held that the 1956 instrumentality applies lone if succession opened aft the Act came into force.