Hindu daughters not entitled to equal share in ancestral property if they had died before September 9, 2005, rules Madras High Court

In a Hindu family, the daughter of a coparcener (a person who has a legal right to share in an ancestral property by birth) will acquire equal rights, compared to a son, in the coparcenary property only if she had been alive on September 9, 2005 when the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 came into force and not otherwise, the Madras High Court has held.Justices N. Sathish Kumar and M.

Jothiraman ruled that the legal heirs of a woman who had died before September 9, 2005 could not seek any consequential right over the property when she herself had not acquired any coparcenary right. When the Parliament had fixed a cut-off date for conferring certain benefit, the court “cannot put the clock back on time,” the judges wrote.The judgement was passed after hearing the views of a host of amici curiae including senior counsel S.

Parthasarathy, G. Masilamani, R. Sankaranarayanan, V.

Raghavachari, S. Mukunth, P. Valliappan and advocates N.

Manokaran and Sharath Chandran. The Bench took the assistance of so many lawyers since the issue involved was of women’s coparcenary rights.After taking into consideration the judgements of the Supreme Court as well as that of other High Courts in the country on the issue, the Bench led by Justice Kumar held that the date of birth of a Hindu woman would be immaterial when it comes to acquiring coparcenary rights, and that even a person born before the enactment of the Hindu Succession Act in 1956 would be entitled to such a right.

However, when it comes to claiming the benefit under the 2025 amendment, which gives equal rights to daughters in coparcenary property, it was essential that the women were alive on the date when the amendment came into force. “The very object of conferring coparcenary right on a female is not to resurrect the past, but only to recognise an antecedent event, prospectively,” the Bench said.The verdict was passed while partly allowing an appeal suit related to the ancestral properties of Murugesa Gounder who had one son and four daughters.

One of his daughters, Anbazhagi, had pre-deceased him in 1998 and another daughter, Sundari, had died in 2019 after his death in 2007. Therefore, the Bench held that Anbazhagi and her legal heirs would not be entitled to a coparcenary right.The Bench said, the ancestral properties must be considered to have been partitioned between Gounder, his son and three daughters with each of them getting one-fifth of the share.

Since Sundari had died only in 2019, her legal heirs would be entitled to get her one-fifth share. However, the legal heirs of Anbazhagi would not be entitled to such a share in the joint family property.The legal heirs of Anbazhagi would actually be entitled only to a much smaller share of 1/25th of the property from the one-fifth of the share left behind by Gounder after his death in 2007 in their capacity as his grandchildren, the Bench concluded.

Published - July 28, 2026 08:07 pm IST Read Comments Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit READ LATER SEE ALL Remove