Summary
In this 2018 decision, the Supreme Court denied the daughters coparcenary status under the Tamil Nadu 1989 amendment because they had married before its commencement, but recognised their succession shares through their parents. It calculated each daughter’s share at one-sixth and the son’s at two-thirds. Completed sales were protected, with the daughters’ corresponding entitlement recoverable from their brother in money or equivalent property with specified interest. The appeal was partly allowed. This headnote records the judgment’s historical reasoning, including its reliance on Prakash v. Phulavati.
Issues
- Whether the daughters qualified under the Tamil Nadu 1989 coparcenary amendment as interpreted in this judgment.
- Whether they nevertheless inherited shares through succession.
- How their entitlement affected completed third-party sales.
Provisions considered
- Section 29-A, particularly clause (iv), as applied in this judgment, Hindu Succession Act, 1956, Tamil Nadu amendmentThe quoted state amendment excluded daughters married before its commencement. The Court applied that restriction to marriages in 1981 and about 1984. This describes the historical ruling. (¶¶ 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
Held
- Under the Tamil Nadu 1989 amendment as applied, the daughters’ pre-commencement marriages excluded the coparcenary claim. The Court also relied on the then-followed living-coparcener reasoning in Prakash v. Phulavati and distinguished Danamma; that passage is the reasoning of this 2018 judgment, not a statement of current law after subsequent decisions. (¶¶ 9, 10, 11)
- Absence of the asserted coparcenary right did not eliminate succession rights. The Court treated the father and son as each holding one-half after division; the father’s separate half devolved equally on his widow, two daughters and son. Each daughter thereby received one-eighth of the total. (¶ 12)
- The mother’s one-eighth then devolved equally on the three children, adding one-twenty-fourth to each. Final shares calculated were one-sixth for each daughter and two-thirds for the son. (¶ 13)
- The sales of 3 April 1996 and 24 August 1998 were not to be disturbed. To the extent the daughters’ succession shares were included in the sold properties, they could obtain their corresponding entitlement from the brother in money or equivalent property, valued at the respective sale-date rates with nine per cent annual interest until payment or transfer. (¶¶ 14, 15, 16)
Result
Appeal partly allowed: daughters’ succession shares recognised and corresponding relief against their brother directed, while the specified completed sales remained undisturbed. Parties to bear their own costs.