Supreme Court on daughers' rights in HUF

The Supreme Court has clarified a major aspect of coparcenary rights for women in HUFs.

 Supreme Court on daughers' rights in HUF

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• Striking in favour of the girl child: In a major judgment aimed at ensuring “right of equality” of a daughter in a Hindu Undivided Family, the Supreme Court held that women will have coparcenary right, or equal right to family property by birth, irrespective of whether her father was alive or not as on September 9, 2005 i.e, the day when Parliament recognised this right by amending the Hindu Succession Act of 1956.
• What was achieved: By this ruling, the Supreme Court has categorically ruled that the daughters’ right flows from their birth and not by any other factor such as the existence of their fathers. Though the judgment aims at rectifying a discriminatory social practice, it would require no less than a behavioural change in the mindset of the Indian society to fulfill the goal of gender parity.
• Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act of 2005: The Mitakshara school of Hindu law, a personal law, codified as the Hindu Succession Act,1956 used to govern the succession and inheritance of property in Hindus.

1. Under it, only males were recognised as the legal heirs or coparceners and women were not a coparcener in the family and thus were denied the right to inherit their father’s property.
2. As a result of this discrimination, Section 6 of the Act was amended in the year 2005 to make a daughter of a coparcener also a coparcener by birth in her own right in the same manner as the son.
3. The law also gave the daughter the same rights and liabilities in the coparcenary property as she would have had if she had been a son.

• Coparcener & Coparcenary property: A coparcener in relation to a Joint Hindu family means a person who is entitled to demand partition of his share in the Coparcenary property. A coparcener is the one who shares equally in the inheritance of an undivided property. A Coparcenary property is one which is inherited by a Hindu from his/her father, grandfather or great-grandfather. Only a coparcener has the right to demand partition of property. Share in a property increases or decreases by death or birth in a family. Before 2005 women were not a part of the coparcenary and hence couldn’t claim or inherit the property of the father.
• Previous judgements: Although since 2005, it was the law that the women are also successor to their father’s property but the position of a woman to succeed to her father’s property whose father was dead on the day of the enforcement of the law was not very clear. Different benches of the Supreme Court and High Courts had taken conflicting views on the issue.

1. In Prakash vs Phoolwati (2015) case, a two-judge Bench headed by Justice A K Goel held that the benefit of the 2005 amendment could be granted only to "living daughters of living coparceners" as on September 9, 2005 (the date when the amendment came into force).
2. But in February 2018, contrary to the 2015 ruling, a two-judge Bench headed by Justice A K Sikri 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.
3. In April 2018, another two judge bench, headed by Justice RK Agrawal, reiterated the position taken in 2015. These conflicting views by benches of equal strength led to a reference to a three judge Bench in the current case.

• 2021 judgment: The three-judge Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra had ruled the following:

1. That a Hindu woman’s right to be a joint heir to the ancestral property is by birth and does not depend on whether her father was alive or not when the law was enacted in 2005.
2. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 gave Hindu women the right to be coparceners or joint legal heirs in the same way a male heir does. Since the coparcenary is by birth,it is not necessary that the father coparcener should be living as on 9.9.2005.
3. If a daughter is alive on the date of enforcement of the Amendment Act, she becomes a coparcener with effect from the date of the Amendment Act, irrespective of the date of birth earlier in point of time.
4. Daughters cannot be deprived of their right of equality conferred upon them by Section 6.
5. The judges also used the common saying that a son is a son until he gets a wife while a daughter is a daughter throughout her life. The judgment noted that several cases on this issue were pending before different courts and were already delayed. The court requested the pending matters to be decided, as far as possible, within six months.

• What was achieved: The verdict cleared the confusion about the law and made it clear that the amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 granting equal rights to daughters to inherit ancestral property would have retrospective effect. The court recognized that gender cannot be grounds for denying anyone their inheritance rights. This interpretation by the Supreme Court has removed male primacy over Hindu ancestral property. Giving the daughter equal coparcenary rights is in consonance with the spirit of equality, under Article 14 of the Indian constitution.
• Problems: Indian families may not willingly cede reins to their women members. Passing on the succession of the family enterprise only to sons stems from deep-rooted tradition and the patriarchal notions. It is likely that some business families, after this ruling, will bypass it, to park their assets or write wills to bequeath assets in favour of male heirs. The majority of women is not even aware of their rights.
• Summary: The judgement is a progressive step in pursuit of creating a level-playing field in legal rights for women, bringing behavioural change in society will play a bigger role towards the goal of gender parity. The fact that it has taken 15 years for the issue to be clarified highlights the urgent need for a clear civil code based on universal principles of natural justice and fundamental rights.
• EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) What are the reasons that women could never get equal status in the Indian society? (2) What judgments of the Supreme Court tried creating a level playing field for the women? Explain.

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