New Delhi: In a path breaking judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday has ordered that, now daughters will have equal right over parental property under the amended Hindu Succession Act, irrespective of whether their father was alive when the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005 came into force.
Rights under the amendment are applicable to the living daughter of living coparceners as on September 9th, 2005 irrespective of when the daughters were born, a three judge Bench of the Supreme Court said.
Coparcener is a person who shares equally with others in the inheritance of an undivided estate or in the rights to it.
“Daughters must be given equal rights as sons; Daughter remains a loving daughter throughout life. The daughter shall remain a coparcener throughout life, irrespective of whether her father is alive or not”, the Bench said.
The question arose out of the contradicting rulings in 2016 and 2018 with regard to interpretation of Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 that was later amended in 2005.
In 2018, the court had said that a daughter by birth becomes a coparcener in her own right in the same manner as the son. Today the court said that a woman will have an equal share in the undivided family property regardless of whether her father was alive when the law was amended in 2005 or not. The court stressed that the law has a retrospective effect.
The 2005 amendment did not provide a retrospective option. Sons and daughters of a coparcener become coparceners by virtue of birth the amendment had said.
(Aditya)
