A Full Bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Mohit Shah C.J, M. S Sanklecha and M.S Sonak, JJ, delivered a noteworthy judgment on daughter’s right to ancestral property in a joint HUF on 14th August, 2014. The Bench was constituted on a reference by Single Judge R.G. Ketkar J. who doubted the correctness of the decision of the Division Bench in the case of Vaishali S. Ganorkar & others v. Satish Keshavrao Ganorkar & others,...
Prior to the enactment of the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 (hereinafter the Amendment Act), the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (hereinafter the Principal Act) did not provide any rights to daughters in respect of partition of property or the right to demand partition or claim shares in the coparcenary property. A coparcener is a person who has equal rights in the undivided property of a HUF. The Amendment Act now entitles women to an interest in the HUF property by amending Section 6 of the Principal Act and makes a daughter a coparcener in her own right, thereby upholding the fundamental right to equality and non discrimination on the basis of gender enshrined in the Constitution...
In the current case the point of contention was not, therefore, whether daughters are also entitled to an interest in the HUF property like their male counterparts, which has been duly settled, but whether the Amendment Act has a prospective or retrospective effect, the determination of which will have a direct bearing on the controversial issue of whether daughters born before 2005 are also entitled to be coparceners in their own right in the same way that daughters born on or after 9 Sept 2005 are now entitled....
The Court, to mete out justice, resorted to the application of an intermediary category known as ‘Retroactive Statute’ which does not operate backwards and does not take away vested rights, but successfully provides rights to those daughters who are alive at the time of the Amendment Act, irrespective of whether they were born before or after 2005. In case the coparcener has died before 2005, then the pre-amended law is applicable but by passing of the Amendment Act, all daughters who are alive ipso facto become coparceners, thus settling the interpretation of the amended Section 6. “The only requirement is that when an Act is being sought to be applied, the person concerned must be in existence/living. The Parliament has specifically used the word ‘on and from the commencement of Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005’ so as to ensure that rights which are already settled are not disturbed by virtue of person claiming as an heir to a daughter who had passed away before the Amendment Act came into force.”, the Court said....
Refer the case.......... https://indiankanoon.org/doc/147510934/
CAclubindia
