Here are details on the Supreme Court verdict on Hindu women’s inheritance rights:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that daughters cannot be deprived of their right of equality, they will have equal coparcenary (joint-heirship) rights in joint Hindu family property even if the father died before the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005.
A three-judge bench of consisting Justices Arun Mishra, S. Nazeer and M.R. Shah said the provisions contained in substituted Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 confer the status of coparcener on the daughter born before or after amendment in the same manner as a son with the same rights and liabilities.
The bench said, “the rights can be claimed by the daughter born earlier with effect from September 9, 2005, with savings as provided in Section 6(1) as to the disposition or alienation, partition or testamentary disposition which had taken place before December 20, 2004. Since the right in coparcenary is by birth, it is not necessary that father coparcener should be living as on September 9, 2005.”
“A daughter always remains a loving daughter. A son is a son until he gets a wife. A daughter is a daughter throughout her life,” Justice Arun Mishra, heading a three-judge Bench, authored the judgment.
Coparcener is a term used for a person who assumes a legal right in the parental property by birth only. It clarifies the ambiguity over the extent of a daughter’s rights in a HUF property.
The bench said: “The daughters cannot be deprived of their right of equality conferred upon them by Section 6. Hence, we request that the pending matters be decided, as far as possible, within six months,”.
Since the right to coparcenary of a daughter is by birth, it is not necessary that the father should be alive as on September 9, 2005. With this, the court has thus overruled an earlier 2015 decision.
The verdict clearly states an amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 granting equal rights to daughters to inherit ancestral property would have retrospective effect.
The judgment is a “great move” and clears mess around a daughter’s rights and interests over a HUF property.
