SC on Inheritance of Daughters | 22 Jan 2022

Why in News

Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that daughters will have equal rights to their father’s property even prior to the enactment of the Hindu Succession Act (HSA) of 1956.

• The case involved a dispute over the property of a person who died in 1949 leaving behind a daughter who also died issueless in 1967.
• Earlier, the trial court held that since the person had died prior to the enforcement of HSA, 1956 therefore the petitioner and her other sisters were not the heirs as on the date of his death and was not entitled to partition of share in the suit properties. Later, the High Court, too, dismissed the appeal against the trial court.

Key Points

• Daughters Inheritance: It ruled that the property of a man who had died without executing a will and is survived only by a daughter will devolve upon the daughter and not others such as his brother.
  • Earlier in 2020, the SC has already expanded the Hindu women’s right to be the coparcener (joint legal heir) and inherit ancestral property on terms equal to male heirs.
• Ancient Texts & Judicial Pronouncements: The SC referred to ancient texts (smritis), commentaries by various renowned learned persons and even judicial pronouncements which have recognised the rights of several female heirs, the wives and the daughter’s being the foremost of them.
  • Tracing the sources of customary Hindu law on inheritance, the SC discussed Mitakshara law.
  • SC also looked into Vyavastha Chandrika, a digest of Hindu Law by Shyama Charan Sarkar Vidya Bhushan which quoted ‘Vrihaspati’ as saying ‘the wife is pronounced successor to the wealth of her husband, in her default, the daughter. As a son, so does the daughter of a man proceed from his several limbs.
  • The SC also noted that the book quoted Manu as saying “the son of a man is even as himself, and the daughter is equal to the son. How then can any other inherit his property, notwithstanding the survival of her, who is, as it were, himself ”.
• Old Law: Right of a widow or daughter to inherit the self-acquired property or share received in partition of a coparcenary property of a Hindu male dying intestate is well recognised not only under the old customary Hindu Law.
  • If a property of a male Hindu dying intestate is a self-acquired property or obtained in partition of a coparcenary or a family property, the same would devolve by inheritance and not by survivorship, and a daughter of such a male Hindu would be entitled to inherit such property in preference to other collaterals”.
• Property After Woman's Death: The court also said that if a female Hindu dies intestate without leaving any issue, then the property inherited by her from her father or mother would go to the heirs of her father whereas the property inherited from her husband or father-in-law would go to the heirs of the husband.
  • In case a female Hindu dies leaving behind her husband or any issue, then Section 15(1)(a) of the HSA 1956 will come into operation and the properties left behind including the properties which she inherited from her parents would devolve simultaneously upon her husband and her issues.

Land Rights and Women in India

• Related Data: Property in India is largely inclined to be passed on to male heirs. This in turn deprives women of agency, financial independence and entrepreneurship. According to the National Family Health Survey-5 , 43% of women respondents reported owning house/land alone or jointly, but doubts remain about women’s ability to actually access and control property.
  • In fact, a 2020 University of Manchester working paper found barely 16% of women in rural landowning households own land.
• Patriarchy: In deep patriarchal mores and rural-agrarian settings, property, which is seen as a primary source of wealth, is largely inclined to be passed on to male heirs.
• State Laws: Inheritance laws for agricultural land remain a minefield with conflicting central personal laws and state laws.
  • In this regard, states such as Punjab, Haryana,Uttar Pradesh (UP) and even Delhi have regressive inheritance provisions.
  • In fact, Haryana twice tried to take away the progressive rights given to women through HSA1956, while in UP since 2016 married daughters aren’t considered primary heirs.
• Ground-level Resistance: There is also a lot of ground-level resistance to registering land for women in several north Indian states. Thus, women’s empowerment and property rights remain an unfinished project.

Source: IE