On Tuesday, in a historic judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that daughters will have the right over parental property even if the co-parcener had died prior to the coming into force of the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005.
The judgment was passed by a three-judge bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah.
Justice Mishra, while reading out the operative part of the judgment said, “Daughters have to be given equal share of coparcenary rights in share of property like the son. Once a daughter, always a daughter… a son is a son till he is married. 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.”
Here’s what we know so far:
1) In 2018, the court had said that a daughter “by birth become a coparcener in her own right in the same manner as the son.”
2) Last year, in a landmark judgment that will benefit millions of women and their children, the Supreme Court has held that a 2005 law that made the daughters equal to the sons in claiming right in their father’s property will have retrospective effect in case of daughters born prior to the law coming into force on September 9, 2005.
3) The Supreme Court had also said that daughters can have coparcenary right only if both the father and the daughter were alive as on September 9, 2005, when the amendment was notified, according to News18.
4) Coparcenary is a term often used in matters related to the Hindu succession law, and coparcener is a term used for a person assumes a legal right in their ancestral property by birth.
5) The judges have asked the courts concerned, where several matters remained pending due to the top court judgement, to dispose them within six months.
