2005 Hindu Succession Act amendment reduced share of mothers and widows: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court recently observed that while the 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act gave daughters equal coparcenery rights in Hindu Undivided Family properties, it let down mothers and widows since it reduced their quantum of property.

In an order passed on November 8, Justice N Seshasayee said that the 2005 amendment had ended up reducing the quantum of property to which widows and mothers would be entitled to in their capacity as Class I legal heirs.

“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, a la the Kerala Joint Family System (Abolition) Act, 1975,” the High Court said.

The Court made the observations while allowing a second appeal filed by two women - Vasumathi and Malathi - who challenged a district court’s order claiming that the court had failed to consider that their father and two brothers had denied them an equal share in their ancestral property.  

As per the appellants, their father inherited the suit property in 1986 by way of a notional partition among his brothers. Since the said property was ancestral, the appellants claimed as per Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, they were coparceners along with their father and brothers, and, thus, were entitled to a share of 1/5^th each in the suit property.

Justice Seshasayee noted that the said property qualified as ancestral property when Sections 6 and 8 of the Hindu Succession Act were read jointly.

"Any theory that proposes that when Sec.8 operates, the share in the hands of the son will be his personal property or individual property and it can never assume the character of an ancestral property even when the son begets a son, will signify the death-knell for the formation of ancestral property," he held.

He further noted that the appellants’ father had executed settlement deeds over the property with his two sons in 2008 after both women claimed their respective shares. However, given that the 2005 amendment was already in place by then, the appellants “had already become entitled to a share in the suit property as coparceners.”

“Therefore, this court unhesitatingly holds that it is an ancestral property in which the appellants as coparcener would be entitled to a share,” it held.

Advocate Sharath Chandran appeared for the two appellants.

Senior Advocate S Silambannan and Advocate K Vasanthanayagan appeared for the respondents.

[Read Order]