About Hindu Succession Act, 1956

• The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 governed succession and inheritance of property but recognised only  males as legal heirs.
• The law applied to everyone who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion.
• Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and followers of Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj are also considered Hindus for the purposes of this law.
• In a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), several legal heirs through generations can exist jointly.
• Traditionally, HUF includes only the male descendants of a common ancestor along with their mothers, wives and unmarried daughters. The legal heirs hold the family property jointly.

2005 Amendment 

• The 1956 Act was amended in September 2005 and women were recognised as coparceners for property partitions arising from 2005.

• Section 6 of the Act was amended to make a daughter of a coparcener also a coparcener by birth “in her own right in the same manner as the son”.
• It also gave the daughter the same rights and liabilities “in the coparcenary property as she would have had if she had been a son”.
• The law applies to ancestral property and to intestate succession in personal property, where succession happens as per law and not through a will.
• While the 2005 law granted equal rights to women, questions were raised in multiple cases on whether the law applied retrospectively, and if the rights of women depended on the living status of the father through whom they would inherit.

Supreme Court Judgements

• Prakash v Phulwati (2015): The SC held that the benefit of the 2005 amendment could be granted only to “living daughters of living coparceners”.
• Danamma v. Amar case in 2018: Contrary to the 2015 ruling, the SC held that the share of a father who died in 2001 will also pass to his daughters as coparceners during the partition of the property as per the 2005 law. Then again in a judgement,  the SC reiterated the position taken in 2015.

Why in News?

The Supreme Court recently held that daughters, like sons, have an equal birthright to inherit joint Hindu family property. A three-judge Bench says that the rights do not depend on whether her father was alive or not when the law was enacted in 2005.

• The Supreme court has overruled the earlier verdict of 2015 that 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.
• It overrules the verdicts from 2015 and April 2018. It settles the law and expands on the intention of the 2005 legislation “to remove the discrimination as contained in section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 by giving equal rights to daughters in the Hindu Mitakshara coparcenary property as the sons have”.

Way Forward

• Traditional Business Families which have not yet recognised the rights of daughters will now have to accommodate rights of daughters in sharing wealth and allowing them to take part in family business. If they fail to do so, daughters can claim their right by filing a petition in the Court.
• The judgment further reinstates faith in the judicial system by making it loud and clear that daughters can no longer be deprived of their rights to ancestral property, no matter when they were born.

Reference:

1. youtube.com/watch?v=zinXWTDRTo8