Supreme Court: When a daughter is born in the house, it is often said that Lakshmi has come. But when it comes to giving that Lakshmi her rights, people often back off. Double standards are often seen in society regarding the rights of daughters.
Especially if we talk about property rights, daughters are deprived of their rights. There are many misunderstandings about the rights of daughters on property. Today we will tell you what rights daughters have in property according to the law and under what circumstances they do not get rights in their father’s property.
How much ownership rights do daughters have on their father’s property?
In India, there has been hesitation in giving daughters their share in the property since the beginning. A big reason for this was that earlier there was no clear law on this. However, now laws have been made to ensure daughters their rights in the property. The Hindu Succession Act, implemented in 1956, was amended in 2005 to give daughters equal rights as sons in ancestral property.
This law was made in 1956 specifically for claims and rights on property. Under this, a daughter has the same rights on her father’s property as a son. In 2005, the Indian Parliament amended this Act and strengthened the rights of the daughter, so that there is no doubt about her right on her father’s property.
When daughters cannot claim father’s property
There are many situations where daughters do not get the right to claim their rights in the property. One of the main reasons for this is that the father transfers his entire property to his son before his death. In this situation, the daughter does not get any rights in the father’s property.
However, this applies only to the self-acquired property of the father. If the property has been received by the father from his ancestors, i.e. it is ancestral property, then the father cannot give it to anyone of his own free will. In this situation, both the daughter and the son have equal rights.
What is the provision in Indian law?
Women rights in ancestral property Under the Hindu Succession Act, there is a provision to give rights to the daughter also in the ancestral property, whereas in Muslim personal law also there is a provision to give rights to the daughter and other women of the family on the ancestral property. In Hindu succession also there was a provision for women to have property rights, but it was on the husband and her (husband’s) ancestral property, but at present this right is available on the father’s property also.
On 9 September 2005, Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 was amended to give equal rights to daughters in their father’s property. However, the condition under this is that if the father is alive as on 9 September 2005, only then will the daughter be entitled to the property.
Recently, on 11 August 2020, in a landmark judgment passed by a three-judge bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the decision of Vineeta Sharma vs Rakesh Sharma (2020) SC 641, it was said that a daughter is entitled to her ancestral property by birth and whether the father is alive or not on the date of amendment is irrelevant.
The 2005 amendment in Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act gives daughters rights in Hindu coparcenary property by birth, which can be claimed only from the date of amendment in 2005. It is worth noting that there is a progressive law on the question of the rights of a daughter as a coparcener and the specific reasons as to in which cases those rights can be successfully claimed also depend on certain factors.
This information was shared by Avnish Pandey (Practitioner, High Court Lucknow and LLM (Student), KMCAU, Lucknow) during a conversation with Prabhat Khabar.
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