Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005 — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma — the daughter is a coparcener by birth, and the father need not have been living on 9 September 2005 (Hindu Succession Act, 1956, not the Income-tax Act)
Supreme CourtCuts both ways
My client's father died in 1999 and her brothers say she cannot claim a share in the coparcenary because the 2005 amendment needed a living father on the date it came into force. Two Supreme Court benches had said different things. What is the position now?
A three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court settled it on 11 August 2020. Answering a reference, the Court held that the substituted section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 confers the status of coparcener on a daughter born before or after the amendment in the same manner as a son, with the same rights and liabilities, and — this is the point that had divided the earlier benches — that "Since the right in coparcenary is by birth, it is not necessary that father coparcener should be living as on 9.9.2005." The Court overruled the contrary view in Prakash v. Phulavati and in Mangammal v. T.B. Raju, and partly overruled Danamma @ Suman Surpur v. Amar to the extent it is contrary. THIS IS NOT AN INCOME-TAX JUDGMENT: the Act construed is the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 as amended by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, and what the Court decides is a partition claim, not the assessment of any income.
Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.
