The Kerala High Court.
Credit: X/@ANI
Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala High Court has ruled that daughters of Hindu persons who died after December 20, 2004, are entitled to equal shares in ancestral property.
The significant order was issued on a petition filed by female heirs seeking equal rights to their father’s ancestral property.
“On and from the commencement of the Hindu Succession (Amendment Act), 2005, the daughter of a Hindu who died after December 20, 2004, in the state of Kerala is entitled to equal share in the ancestral property, subject to the exception provided under sub-section (5) of Section 6 and the Explanation to sub-section (5) of Section 6,” a bench of Justice Easwaran S said in the order issued on July 7.
The court held that Section 3 (birth in family not to give rise to rights in property) and Section 4 (joint tenancy to be replaced by tenancy in common) of the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act-1975 are repugnant to Section 6 of the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act-2005, and thus cannot have any effect.
The court opened its order by quoting a verse from the Skanda Purana, “One daughter is equal to 10 sons. Whatever phala (merit or good result) a person attains by siring and raising 10 sons, the same phala is attained by begetting a single daughter,” it said.