Supreme Court of India has ruled that Hindu women along with their male siblings have equal rights in property in a Hindu family. Female inheritors will also have the same liabilities fastened on the property along with the male members. In simple terms, ancestral properties and wealth of parents should be equally divided among brothers and sisters.
The Hindu Reports
A bench of justices R. M. Lodha and Jagdish Singh Khehar in a judgment said that under the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, the daughters are entitled to equal inheritance rights along with other male siblings, which was not available to them prior to the amendment.
“The new Section 6 provides for parity of rights in the coparcenary property among male and female members of a joint Hindu family on and from September 9, 2005. The legislature has now conferred substantive right in favour of the daughters.
“According to the new Section 6, the daughter of a coparcener becomes a coparcener by birth in her own rights and liabilities in the same manner as the son. The declaration in Section 6 that the daughter of the coparcener shall have same rights and liabilities in the coparcenary property as she would have been a son is unambiguous and unequivocal,”Justice Lodha, writing the judgment, said.
The term coparcener refers to the equal inheritance right of a person in a property.