Property Rights of Women in India

For long, women were not allotted an equal share in the property as men. Property rights of women in India remained largely an ignored and unaddressed issue. The status of women in India has now undergone a huge change. We now find women conscious of their rights and becoming advocate for property in their own personal and social realms. As a mother, wife, daughter, or daughter-in-law, a woman has different property ownership and inheritance rights.

Due to the cognizance and labour of the lawyer for property over the years, there are some acts and sections, like The Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act and Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act, already existing that provide property rights to women under the Hindu Personal laws.

The Hindu  Women’s Rights to Property Act,1937 deals with the rights of Hindu widows.The widow of a deceased is entitled to a share of the property will have the same interest which her husband had while he was alive.

Under Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act,1956; a Hindu woman has absolute right over the property possessed by her which can be movable, inherited, devised, gifted, purchased etc. She has the sole authority over her “stridhana” and dispose off the property the way she wants.

Hindu Succession Act 1956

Hindu Succession talks about two types of property one being the ancestral property and the second is self-acquired property.

In the original Mitakshara coparcenary set-up, the property of the family devolved by survivorship, i.e., the interest held by a coparcener in the property did not cease to exist on his/her death but this interest was transferred to the remaining coparceners.

The Coparcenary concept involves the right of coparceners by birth in Coparcenary property. Since women were not included as Coparceners, as a result of the doctrine of survivorship, women were denied the right to inherit property as they were not considered as coparceners in the first place.

Thus, this was a point of great impediment for the advocate for property as there was a very wide and disturbing lacuna in the law that discriminated severely between male and female heirs. Even the wife of the deceased coparcener was not included in the devolution of property as she was not a coparcener in the joint family of her husband. This was the trigger point for the country’s lawyer for property to bring about the amendment of 2005.

After the Supreme Court Judgement in the case of Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma in 2020, the Topic of “Property Rights in Women” has become an important topic particularly in the Hindu Succession Act of 1956.

2005 Amendment

The final blow to the doctrine of survivorship due to repeated efforts by the lawyer for property, however, came after five decades of struggle against the original enactment. In 2005, Section 6 of the he Hindu Succession Act 1956  was finally amended to recognise daughters at par with sons and grant them the status of coparcenary by birth.

Now daughters would have the same rights and liabilities in the coparcenary property as that of a son. However, this journey of development is far from over.  Law is ever evolving in nature. As India develops, there will continue to be a rise in demand for amendments and newer enactments when it comes to property rights of women due to the ever-increasing awareness and education of the country’s advocate for property.

Muslim Law
The daughters have right of inheritance equal to one-half of the son’s share to their father’s estate.She has full control over her share of property and has the legal right to control, manage and dispose of her share as per her wishes in life or after death. The wife too has a right to maintenance as any other wife.A Mother has right to inherit a one-sixth share of her deceased child’s property and her property will be divided as per the rules of Muslim law.

Christian Law

The daughters inherit equally with any brothers in her father’s or mother’s estate. The wife upon the death of her husband has the right to receive one third of his estate and the rest is divided among his children equally. The mother may inherit one fourth of her children’s property if her kids die without a spouse or any living child.