NEW DELHI: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice has suggested that the Hindu Succession Act (HSA), 1956, be amended to give equal property rights to women, both married and unmarried, on a par with men.

The committee, headed by E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan (Congress), made the suggestion while considering the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Bill, 2004, which was referred to it by Parliament.

Under the HSA, 1956, ancestral property is governed by a wholly patrilineal regime, whereby only male members in a joint Hindu family will have an interest by birth in the coparcenary property. This meant female members of a family cannot inherit ancestral property as males do. If a joint family gets divided, each male coparcener takes his share and the females get nothing. Only when one of the coparceners dies, a female gets a share of his (the deceased) interest as an heir to the deceased. While Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra have introduced State enactments to give equal rights to men and women, in other States the discrimination continues.

The Government introduced the amendment Bill in 2004 to remove this disparity by including female members also as coparceners by giving equal rights to daughters in the Hindu Mitakshara coparcenary property as the sons have. Further, the HSA, 1956, disentitles a female heir to ask for partition in respect of a dwelling house wholly occupied by a joint family until the male heirs choose to divide their respective shares therein. Under the amendment Bill, this provision has been deleted.

The committee heard the views of a cross section of the people on the proposed amendment Bill. It was pointed out that even under the amendment Bill daughters married before the commencement of Amendment Act will not get the benefit of the amendment.

The committee has, therefore, recommended that the Government should work out some means to compensate the already married daughters, who are not likely to get the status of coparceners in the Mitakshara joint family property. In the absence of such a measure, a whole generation of women, contemporary to the passage of this important enactment, will lose out their property rights, while their fellow sisters, just by virtue of being unmarried, will get the full benefit. The panel recommends that for those undivided Hindu joint family governed by the Mitakshara system, where partition has not taken place at the time of commencement of the Amendment Act, the already married daughters should be given the status of coparceners.

While welcoming the amendment Bill whereby daughters have been given the status of coparceners, the panel has recommended that the Government should examine making suitable provisions to ensure that no injustice is done to other female heirs, especially the widows, on remarriage.

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