Coparcenary Rights of Daughters: Solving the Obvious Jigsaw

Recently, the Supreme Court of India in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma held that daughters possess coparcenary rights from birth, at par with sons. This judgment resolved the issues of prospective and retrospective application of the 2005 Amendment to Hindu Succession Act. Mahalakshmi Pavani, a Senior Advocate at Supreme Court of India, examines the history of gender justice in property rights for Indian women.

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IN a country entrenched in parochial mindsets, it is obvious to find laws structured specially to cater to the interests of men, who occupy a dominant role in every sphere. A pertinent example of this was the devolution of property, wherein the sons of the Hindu Undivided Family were deemed to be natural heirs' to the ancestral property. 

Prior to the enactment of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 (Act of 1956), Hindus were governed by shastric and diverse customary laws that varied by regions and castes. Different schools governed succession practices, like  Dayabhaga in  Bengal;  Mayukha in Bombay, Konkan and Gujarat and Marumakkattayam or Nambudri in Kerala and Mitakshara in other parts of India with slight variations. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956, was instrumental in consolidating the law on succession and making it uniform across most states. The law, as it stood then, retained the Mitakshara coparcenary property and excluded females.

Females could not inherit ancestral property with the same parity as their male counterparts. Such exclusion was ipso facto discriminatory and oppressive. It negated the fundamental right of equality guaranteed to women by the Constitution of India.  Notably, many states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra made sweeping changes to the law to give equal rights to daughters.