New Delhi: Property inherited by a man from his father following a partition of the father’s estate is held by him in his individual capacity and his son does not acquire any right to it by birth, the Supreme Court has held.
An appeal by a minor through his mother was dismissed by the bench of Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice Sunita Agarwal, which held that the property in question had lost its coparcenary character after partition and could not be claimed as joint family property.
Under the codified Hindu law, the Schedule to Section 8 lists Class I heirs as including the son but not the son’s son while the living father is alive, the Court observed. It specifically includes the son of a predeceased son.
“To say that when a son inherits the property in the situation contemplated by Section 8 he takes it as Karta of his own undivided family would be impossible,” the bench said.
The Court emphasised that the express words of Section 8 must prevail and cannot be ignored.
The right of a son’s son in his grandfather’s property during the lifetime of his father, which existed under the pre-1956 personal Hindu law, was not expressly saved by the legislature when the Hindu Succession Act was enacted, Justice Agrawal noted.
In the present case, the appellant had sought partition and possession of a half share in a property measuring 1,811 sq ft in Chennai. He claimed it was joint family property belonging to his grandfather, late N Ramakrishnan, which had been inherited by him along with his father, as reported by Deccan Herald.
The father had sold the property through two sale deeds in 1997 to third parties after receiving it under a compromise decree in a 1993 partition suit filed by his sister.
The trial court had granted a preliminary decree of partition.
The first appellate court and the Madras High Court set it aside, holding that the father had become the absolute owner of the share allotted to him.
This view was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Upon the death of N Ramakrishnan, succession opened under Section 8, the Court held. The Class I heirs succeeded as tenants-in-common and not as joint tenants. Under the 1994 compromise decree, each heir became the exclusive owner of the property falling to his or her share. With the partition, the property ceased to be joint family property.
Since the succession opened and the partition took place before the appellant’s birth in 1994, no interest devolved on him, the bench held.
It clarified that Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act and Section 29-A of the Hindu Succession (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 1989, which conferred equal coparcenary rights on daughters, had no application.
The appellant, being a male, could not claim benefits meant for daughters, and the property had already been transformed into individual ownership through partition.
Holding that there was no infirmity in the high court’s judgement, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.