‘Once A Daughter, Always A Daughter’: SC Says Women’s Parental Property Rights Are By Birth

In 2005, the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 was amended to give daughters equal rights in ancestral properties just like sons. Recently, a question was raised before a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court asking if the law had retrospective effects. The confusion arose after the court gave two different judgments in 2015 and 2018.

According to The Indian Express, in the former case, it was held that the law is “applicable to living daughters of living coparceners as on 9-9-2005” and in the latter, daughters were given equal inheritance in the property of their father who died before the amendment came into effect.

The matter has now been clarified and daughters have equal rights and liabilities in parental property irrespective of when they were born and if the father was alive at the time of the amendment.

NDTV quoted Justice Arun Kumar Mishra saying, “Daughters have to be given equal share of coparcenary rights in share of property like the son.”

He added, “Daughter is always a loving daughter for the rest of their life. 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 the inheritance of an undivided joint family property) throughout life, irrespective of whether her father is alive or not.”

What do you think of this judgment?

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