Category: Succession and Inheritance

ISSUE:

Whether illegitimate children are entitled to a share in the coparcenary property or whether their share is limited only to the self-acquired property of their parents under Section 16(3) of the Hindu Marriage Act?

RULE:

Section 16(3) as amended, does not impose any restriction on the property right of such children except limiting it to the property of their parents. Therefore, such children will have a right to whatever becomes the property of their parents whether self-acquired or ancestral.

ISSUE:

What is ancestral property? Whether property inherited from a maternal grandfather would constitute grandson’s separate property?

RULE:

The word "ancestor" in its ordinary meaning includes an ascendant in the maternal, as well as the paternal, line; but the "ancestral" estate, in which, under the Hindu law, a son acquires jointly with his father an interest by birth, must be confined, as shown by the original text of the Mitakshara, to the property descending to the father from his male ancestor in the male line. The expression has sometimes been used in its ordinary sense, and that use has been the cause of misunderstanding.

ISSUE:

Whether when self acquired property of father given to son becomes ancestral or self acquired in the hands of son?

RULE:

• Property gifted by a father to his son could not become ancestral property in the hands of the donee simply by reason of the fact that the donee got it from his father or ancestor.

ISSUE:

Whether the grounds of dismissal of appeals by High court and other courts valid?

Whether plaintiff is entitled of all the plaints properties?

RULE:

Rules of procedure are meant to advance the cause of justice and not to short circuit decision on merits.

If a person inherits property, whether movable or immovable, from his father or father's father, or father's father's father, it is ancestral property as regards his male issue.