Succession law: Govt backs provision that prioritises husband’s kin

The Union government has defended in the Supreme Court a provision in succession law that puts the husband’s family first in the line of inheritance, before the woman’s own parents, if she died without executing a will.

Submitting its affidavit on Tuesday, the Centre justified the legislative intent and the scheme of the 1956 Hindu Succession Act, which creates two different sets of succession in cases of men and women dying intestate (without a will). The top court is expected to hear the case on Wednesday.

Under the law, when a Hindu man dies, the properties left behind by him are to be distributed equally among his wife, children and his mother. If there is no such successor living on that day, the properties of a Hindu male go to his father.

However, under sections 15 and 16 of the 1956 Act, when a Hindu woman dies intestate, her properties, including self-acquired assets, shall be inherited by her children and husband. If the woman has no living husband or children, the heirs of the husband shall inherit the property. Only in the event that the woman’s husband has no heirs shall the property be inherited by the woman’s parents.

The petition filed in the Supreme Court in 2018 by Mumbai-resident Kamal Anant Khopkar, who is represented by advocates Mrunal Dattatraya Buva and Dhairyashil Salunkhe, challenged the validity of the contentious provisions of the succession law.

Owing to the impediments created by the 1956 Act, Khopkar had cited her difficulties in inheriting her daughter’s self-acquired properties after her death.

The petition argued that sections 15 and 16 of the Act “unveils deeply rooted patriarchal ideology,” adding the contentious provisions do not consider a Hindu woman to be an independent person capable of transferring her properties to her blood relatives.

The plea emphasises that the legal provisions are not only discriminatory but attacks the dignity of women. “Hindu women, socially and economically, deserve equal participation in the development and progress of the world’s largest democracy,” the petition added.

In February 2019, a Supreme Court bench headed by justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud sought a response from the central government, stating that “the writ petition filed before this court under section 32 raises an important question of gender equality.”

More than three years later, the Centre filed its reply on Tuesday, defending the 1956 Act on the ground that previous Supreme Court rulings have ratified the law. It cited a 2009 judgment of the top court in which the court decided in favour of property rights of a woman to the husband’s brother even though the women stayed for 42 years with her parents following the husband’s death after the marriage. Sentiments and sympathy cannot be a guiding principle to determine the interpretation of law and it should not be interpreted in a manner that was not envisaged by the legislature, the Supreme Court said in this judgment.

Relying on this judgment, the central government has maintained: “It is a well-settled law that because a law causes hardship, it cannot be interpreted to defeat its objective.”

Snubbing any possibility of any amendment in the Act in near future, the affidavit added that although certain recommendations have been made by the Law Commission and the National Commission for Women to put men and women on par in matters of succession and inheritance, views of all the states and Union territories are required to be gathered before considering the matter any further.