SC upholds daughters’ rights

Rules that they will have rights over parental property even if father is not alive

New Delhi, Aug. 11: In a significant judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that daughters have equal right in parental property as sons even if their father died before the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005 came into force, and observed that “a daughter always remains a loving daughter”.

The top court, while overruling its earlier decision, held that “rights under the amendment are applicable to living daughters of living coparceners as on 9-9-2005, irrespective of when such daughters are born”.

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Arun Kumar Mishra, said, “Once a daughter, always a daughter... a son is a son till he is married… until he gets a wife. The daughter shall remain a coparcener (one who shares equally with others in inheritance of an undivided joint family property) throughout life, irrespective of whether her father is alive or not… Daughters must be given equal rights as sons... daughter remains a loving daughter throughout life.”

The question that urged the top court to make the remarks today was, “Does the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, which gave equal right to daughters in ancestral property, have a retrospective effect.”

The verdict makes it clear the amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, granting equal rights to daughters to inherit ancestral property would have retrospective effect.

The bench, which also included S. Nazeer and M.R. Shah, said on Tuesday the provisions contained in substituted Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, confer the status of coparcener on the daughter born before or after amendment in the same manner as a son with the same rights and liabilities.

The court said Tuesday, “The rights can be claimed by the daughter born earlier with effect from September 9, 2005, with savings as provided in Section 6(1) as to the disposition or alienation, partition or testamentary disposition which had taken place before December 20, 2004. Since the right in coparcenary is by birth, it is not necessary that father coparcener should be living as on September 9, 2005.”

The bench said the pending matters on this issue be decided within six months.