Hindu Succession Act | 2005 Amendment Giving Equal Rights To Daughter Resulted In Reducing Shares Of Mother & Widow : Madras High Court

“In the din of this euphoria what however, appears to have been overlooked is that other than the daughters, the widow and the mother of the deceased coparcener also figure as Class I female heirs, and the rise in status of daughters as coparceners in effect has reduced the quantum of property which the widow and the mother would get. But, what is significant is that neither before, nor now, the Parliament has attempted to destroy the fundamentals of Hindu law such as the coparcenery, the ancestral property, and their inter-relationship and the legal incidence attached to them,” the court observed.

The court added that the effect of a notional partition was two fold. Firstly to interfere with the right of the surviving coparceners to succeed to the share of the deceased coparcenor by survivorship and secondly to reduce the combined holding to the extent of the property that became allottable to Class I female heirs.

The court remarked that the Parliament, while enacting Section 6, had merely experimented with the idea of empowering a class of female heirs economically, but was hesitant to bring the daughters of a male coparcener to the level of a coparcener. The court added that notional partition was a way by which the legislature ensures that a balance was brought between its intent to preserve the legal incidence of ancestral property in the hands of coparcenary along with its intent to vest some right in the ancestral property to the female heirs of the deceased coparcener.

Discussing the observations of the Supreme Court in Vineeta Sharma v Rakesh Sharma, the court added that the intent of the legislature while bringing in the 2005 amendment was to provide security and dignity to a certain class of female heirs of a deceased coparcener. The court observed that the notional partition under Section 6 of the Act engineered a vertical and horizontal division of ancestral property among the coparceners, as a vehicle to grant some right in the ancestral property to a class of female heirs.

Stressing on the need to ensure right to property to daughter's, the court also remarked that the right to a dignified life is only achieved if it is backed by a right to property. The court added that without ensuring economic freedom, it was futile to presume that women could enjoy any other personal rights effectively.

“The right to dignified life is unachievable in reality unless it is backed by right to property. And if equality doctrine has to be telescoped into right to dignified life, then a man and a woman cannot have an identical or substantially similar levels of dignified life unless both have certain right to property. Without economic freedom, it is futile to presume that a woman can enjoy her other personal rights effectively. While Article 15 of the Constitution grants women a right to equal opportunity, it is the economic security that ensures them a complete life under the Constitution,” the court said.

The suit property was allotted to the first defendant father in a partition between him and his brother in 1986. The petitioner daughters argued that the properties were ancestral in character and thus claimed that they were coparcenors along with their father and brothers. The daughters had thus demanded a share of 1/5^th each in the suit property relying on Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act.

The respondent father, on the other hand, argued that after the notional partition which took place between him, his brother and sisters, the property was vested with the respondent in his personal capacity and it did not retain the character of ancestral property.

The petitioners however countered this argument and submitted that the recitals in the partition deed, through which the property were allotted to the father, described all the properties as a whole as ancestral property.

The court agreed with this contention and observed that when the father had consciously subscribed to the deed, treating the property as ancestral, he was estopped from resiling from his stated position as to the description of the property.

The court observed that the property held by the father was an ancestral property and what emerges out of the ancestral property will be necessarily ancestral property and what remains after providing for female heirs will also remain as ancestral property. The court thus held that the father's undivided 1/3^rd share in the property, along with the 1/18^th share which he obtained from his father would constitute ancestral property and thus, the daughters, as coparcenors, were eligible to the same.

The court thus held that the settlement deed executed by the father in favour of the petitioner's brother would not hold ground as the daughters were already entitled to a share in the suit property. Thus, allowing the appeal in favour of the daughters, the court set aside the judgment of the Additional District Judge.

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr. Sharath Chandran

Counsel for the Respondents: Mr. S.Silambannan, Senior Advocate for Mr.K.Vasanthanayagan

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Mad) 439

Case Title: Vasumathi and Another v R Vasudevan and Others

Case No: S.A.No.527 of 2022