High Court clarifies when daughters can’t claim rights in father’s property – key legal condition explained | India News – The Times of India

The Chhattisgarh high court has ruled that a daughter cannot claim a share in her deceased father’s property if he passed away before the enforcement of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The court said that in such cases, succession is governed by the Mitakshara Law, which was in effect before the 1956 legislation and recognised only sons as legal heirs to a father’s property.The ruling came in a second appeal filed by the legal heirs of one Ragmania, who had sought a share in the estate of her father, Sudhin, a resident of Surguja district. The high court noted that Sudhin had died around 1950–51, several years before the 1956 law was enacted. Since his death had opened the line of succession at that time, the property would devolve according to the pre-Hindu Succession Act rules.“When a Hindu governed by Mitakshara Law died before 1956, his separate property would completely devolve upon his son. A female child could claim a right in such property only in the absence of a male child,” the court saidWhat it meansThe ruling clarifies that if a father died before the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 came into force, daughters cannot inherit his property under the modern law. Such cases will continue to be governed by the pre-1956 Mitakshara Hindu Law, which gives inheritance preference to male heirs.Legal backgroundBefore 1956, inheritance among Hindus was largely governed by two traditional systems — the Mitakshara and Dayabhaga schools of law. Under Mitakshara, which prevailed across most of India, property ownership was typically patriarchal, with sons holding coparcenary rights from birth. Daughters were excluded unless no male heir existed.The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 changed this framework by codifying inheritance rights and, decades later, was amended in 2005 to grant daughters equal coparcenary rights as sons. However, courts have repeatedly held that the 1956 law applies only if succession opened after the Act came into force.