Mother’s remarriage can’t deprive daughter of late father’s property: Madras High Court

A coparcener under the law is a member of a Hindu joint family who gains a legal right to a family’s ancestral property by birth.

What the court held

The case concerns the share of a man who had died, leaving behind his wife and daughter. His wife remarried later and did not claim any share in his estate. His daughter, a Class I legal heir, inherited his entire share.

Justice P B Balaji noted that the widow claimed no entitlement in the present case.

However, another coparcener argued that since the widow had remarried, the late coparcener’s share should revert to the other coparceners and enlarge their respective shares. The petitioner’s counsel said that even though the late coparcener died leaving behind the daughter, that daughter would not be entitled to a share.

On the other hand, the counsel appearing for the deceased man’s daughter argued that while the widow may have lost her entitlement by remarrying, her remarriage could not deprive the other legal heirs, including the daughter, of their right to inherit his share.

The court observed that the widow of a pre-deceased son or the widow of a brother is not entitled to succeed to the property of a person who died without leaving a valid will, if she has remarried by the date on which the person (whose property is to be inherited) dies.

“The coparcenary interest of the pre-deceased son does not get extinguished unlike Section 25 and continues to be available to be taken by the other preferential Class 1 legal heirs, say the mother or children of the pre-deceased son,” it said.

Court distinguishes sections 24, 25

The court distinguished a Supreme Court ruling relied upon by the petitioner, observing that the earlier case dealt with Section 25 of the Hindu Succession Act, which concerns the disqualification of a person who murders the person from whom they would otherwise inherit property. The present case, however, concerned a different section and the remarriage of a widow.

“The judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court relating to a totally different factual matrix, where Section 25 and not Section 24 (restricting inheritance rights of certain widows) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 was involved, I do not see how this decision can be applied to the facts of the present case,” the judge said.

The high court noted that the widow was not claiming any entitlement in the present case and that the disqualification applied only to her, not to other legal heirs. Since the late father’s daughter was his only Class I legal heir, she inherited his entire coparcenary interest upon his death and had subsequently dealt with the property.

The court, hence, rejected the petitioner’s argument that the widow’s remarriage would cause the entire share to revert to the other coparceners, thereby depriving even his daughter of her right to inherit.