Published on 25th June 2025
Authored By: Aman Laxminarayan Goyal
Madhusudan Law University
Supreme Court of India
2020
Citation: (2020) 9 SCC 1
Introduction
“Property is a relation, not a thing.” This legal maxim assumes significant meaning when viewed through the prism of gender justice within the Hindu matrix of orbits. For centuries, daughters observed from the sidelines of familial wealth — having the family name but not the material legacy. The 2005 Amendment to the Hindu Succession Act sought to redress this historical injustice, considering daughters as “coparceners by birth”, but its implementation remained mired in judicial discord for a decade and a half.
In the judgment of Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma on August 11, 2020, the Supreme Court conclusively held that the coparcenary rights of daughters are not dependent on whether or not their fathers were alive when the amendment came into force. With one stroke, the Court rejected the patrilineal conditionality that had survived even progressive legislation, holding that a daughter’s birthright cannot be contingent on her father dying.
Facts of the Case
Parties Involved
The appellant Vineeta Sharma sought coparcenary rights over their ancestral property against her brother Rakesh Sharma who argued that their father died long before the 2005 Amendment became effective and therefore Vineeta could not make a claim for coparcenary rights.
Relevant Facts
The issue at hand related to the property of a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), whose father had expired before September 9, 2005, Section 6(1), which was introduced by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, provided: “In a Joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara law a daughter of a coparcener shall by birth become a coparcener in her own right in the same manner as the son.”
Procedural History
The case went to the Supreme Court amid judicial disarray generated by conflicting interpretations:
Similarly in Prakash v. Phulavati (2016), a division bench of the Supreme Court ruled that the Amendment would be applicable, only if both the daughter and her father were alive on September 9, 2005.
In Danamma v. Amar (2018), yet another division bench gave coparcenary rights to daughters even if the father had predeceased the enactment of the Amendment.
The bench duly constituted that required its resolution by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.
Legal Issues
- Whether a daughter’s coparcenary rights under the 2005 Amendment is contingent upon whether her father was alive on September 9, 2005?
- Do the amended provisions apply retroactively, prospective, or retrospectively?
- How are unobstructed heritage and survivorship concepts to be applied in light of the Amendment?
These questions had a direct bearing on inheritance rights in innumerable Hindu families. How it was interpreted would dictate whether the legislation would apply equally to all daughters or if it would create arbitrary classifications based on the time of death of their fathers—a criterion entirely extraneous to the gender equality goal of the Amendment.
Court’s Decision
Holding
The Supreme Court held unanimously that:
Daughters are coparceners by birth, whether or not their father was alive as of September 9, 2005.
The retroactive operation of the Amendment endows daughters born before its commencement with rights.
Since the right adheres from birth, the father’s living status at the time the Amendment became effective makes no difference.
Rationale
The Court’s conclusion was based on the textual interpretation of Section 6, which unequivocally provides that a daughter “shall by birth become a coparcener in her own right.” The Court explained that if this right were contingent upon whether the father was alive, it would contradict the plain statutory language and burden the entitlement with a condition that the legislature never intended.
Legal Reasoning
Justice Arun Mishra, writing the unanimous opinion, used several interpretive tools:
Legal Theory: The expression “shall by birth become a coparcener” creates a statutory fiction that daughters shall from birth, not from 2005, be coparceners. Because the right accrues at birth, the father’s status back in 2005 has no bearing.
Legislative Intent: Parliament sought to remove gender discrimination concerning Hindu succession law. To condition the availability of this relief on the survival of the father would frustrate this remedial objective.
Constitutional Values: The court relied on Articles 14 and 15 while interpreting the phrases in question, observing that: “The amendment aims to eradicate the discrimination against the women, born in the context of wedlock and out of wedlock, and if the dissimilar interpretation was put to the provision on the occurrence of the event of the death of the father before the amendment; it would destroy the complete objective of the Act.”
Conceptual Clarity: The Court distinguished between the accrual of rights (which happens at birth) and their exercise (which may be deferred until the Amendment’s effectiveness).
The Court explicitly overruled Prakash v. Phulavati, finding that it had erroneously interpreted the phrase “on and from the commencement of the Amendment Act” as limiting the class of eligible daughters rather than merely marking when rights could be exercised.
Impact of the Case
Legal Precedent
The ruling set several key precedents:
A daughter was coparcener by birth irrespective of whether her father was alive when the Amendment came into force.
Rights “by birth,” when conferred by remedial legislation, cannot be conditioned by implication not contained in the statute.
Statutory provisions designed to achieve constitutional equality should be construed broadly, not narrowly.
The ruling establishes a binding precedent for thousands of pending property disputes across the country.
Social Impact
Wealth Transfer: The decision may help transfer considerable wealth to women who were earlier barred from inheriting ancestral property.
Kinship Structure: The judgment shakes the norms of male primogeniture that pervades the property transfer among Hindus and may alter the power structure within the community.
Harmonization Of Conflicting Judicial Precedents: With conflicting judicial precedents on inheritance issues, families involved in such cases will find clarity.
Implementation Challenges: The legal framework is clear, in practice there are challenges to implementation where traditional practice can outweigh formal legal entitlements.
Personal Analysis
Critical Analysis
It is an exercise in extraordinary judicial craftsmanship.” Its virtue is in both textual fidelity — and interpretive purpose — and not at the expense of one for the other. The Court properly held that conditioning daughters’ benefits upon the survival of the father would lead to arbitrary distinctions among the daughters based on circumstances unrelated to the equal treatment of the sexes.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
The judgment settles an important interpretative battle and provides desperately needed certainty.
The Court’s reasoning is doctrinally sound, grounded in the statutory text while furthering constitutional values.
The interpretation does not produce arbitrary classifications that would have rendered the rights of daughters dependent upon factors irrelevant to the purpose of the Amendment.
Weaknesses:
In cases where transactions occurred between 2005 to 2020 under the now-overruled view, there is limited direction provided about a retroactive property division.
Lack of attention to implementation challenges, particularly in rural contexts in which customary practices frequently prevail over formal legal rights.
Alternative Outcomes
If the Court had upheld Prakash v. Phulavati, it would have erected an artificial barrier to gender equality, grounded in a contingency unrelated to the purpose of the Amendment. It would have taken the form of women being excluded from coparcenary rights if their fathers happened to die before property division — a criterion altogether unrelated to gender equality.
Conclusion
Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma is a landmark judgment in Hindu succession law, firmly entrenching daughters’ equal coparcenary rights, irrespective of when they were born or whether their father was alive in 2005. By emphasizing the statute’s plain language and its remedial purpose, the Supreme Court tore down a barrier that had long constrained daughters’ economic rights.
The ruling illustrates how judicial interpretation can expand or contract the scope of legislative efforts to drive social change. By favoring a reading that gives full effect to gender equality, the Court had a role to play in converting abstract legal rights flowing out of the Constitution into real-life economic entitlements for countless women throughout India.
And though this is a major legal victory, its real test will be in enactment. This remains much more theoretical than substantive, especially in customary contexts. By treating daughters as coparceners by birth — not by judicial or legislative grace — the Court also recognizes the inextricable link between economic rights and substantive equality. Property means not just wealth, but security, opportunity and agency. In a society where the pendulum of economic power has long swung in male hands, this redistribution is a real move toward material equality.
References
- Hindu Succession Act, 1956, Section 6 (pre-Amendment).
- Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005.
- Prakash v. Phulavati, (2016) 2 SCC 36.
- Danamma v. Amar, (2018) 3 SCC 343.
- Ganduri Koteshwaramma v. Chakiri Yanadi, (2011) 9 SCC 788.
- Constitution of India, Articles 14 and 15.
- Bhat, P.I. (2020). “Retrospectivity and Rights: Analysis of Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma.” Supreme Court Cases Journal, 15(3), 82-97.
- Parashar, A. (2021). “Gender and Property in Hindu Law.” Journal of Indian Law Institute, 63(1), 42-61.
- Law Commission of India. (2000). 174th Report on Property Rights of Women. New Delhi: Government of India.
- M. Seshachalam v. M. Bala Subrahmanyam, (2020) SCC OnLine SC 467.
