Mrs. Sujata Sharma v. Shri Manu Gupta (2016)

The 2005 amendment made a daughter a coparcener by birth. This is the decision that carries that change to its logical end: if the eldest coparcener manages the joint family, and a daughter is now a coparcener, then the eldest daughter can be the karta. It is the clearest illustration in this paper of a statutory equality reaching into a place the old law had reserved absolutely for men.

The plaintiff was the eldest surviving member of a Hindu undivided family — a fact not in dispute — and the daughter of one of its acknowledged coparceners, who had died in 1984, before the amendment. The family property comprised a residential bungalow together with shares, deposits and bank accounts.

She sued for a declaration that, being the first born among the coparceners, she was entitled by virtue of her birth to be the karta. Four defendants opposed her; five gave their no objection and were, as the judgment puts it, virtually plaintiffs; two said their position should be determined according to law and supported her claim.

A family settlement recorded in 1999 had acknowledged the members of the family and their shares, and she had signed it as a member of the family. The mutation records of the property had been made successively in the names of male members described as karta.

The opposing argument was that the Act sought to remove obstacles in succession and gave a female an absolute right in property she possessed, but never intended to extend a female coparcener's right to the management of the family, which by the ancient texts vests in the eldest male member.

The suit was decreed and the plaintiff declared the karta of the joint family. The Court found no restriction in the law preventing the eldest female coparcener from being karta.

1. Identify the old impediment precisely. The Supreme Court had approved the Madras view that coparcenership is a necessary qualification for managership: the right to become manager depends on the fundamental fact that the person was a coparcener, and the right was confined to male members because females, though members of the joint family, were not treated as coparceners. On that view it would be revolutionary to suppose that the senior-most female member could be the manager even where she had adult sons; she would be guardian of her minor sons, but not manager, because she was not a coparcener.

1. The 2005 amendment removed that very disqualification. By the new provision a daughter of a coparcener in a Mitakshara joint family becomes a coparcener in her own right, enjoying rights equal to those hitherto enjoyed by a son, with all the rights that follow, including the right to seek partition. The commentators draw the express conclusion that, the old law having barred a female from acting as karta because she was not a coparcener, under the new provision she could also become karta.

1. Read the objects and reasons. The statement of objects records that the retention of the Mitakshara coparcenary without including females means they cannot inherit ancestral property as their male counterparts do; that excluding the daughter from coparcenary ownership not only contributes to discrimination on the ground of gender but has led to oppression and negation of her fundamental right of equality; that several States had already made changes; and that it was proposed to remove that discrimination and also to omit the section which had disentitled a female heir from seeking partition of a dwelling house until the male heirs chose to divide.

1. Constitutional backing. There is positive constitutional protection in favour of women in the equality provisions and in the Directive Principles.

1. Interpret the provision literally. Where the words of a statute are absolutely clear and unambiguous, recourse cannot be had to any rule other than the literal rule; the language employed is the determinative factor of legislative intent, the legislature is presumed to have made no mistake, and the Court should not seek to amend the law in the guise of interpretation. The provision devolving coparcenary interest is clear and unambiguous, and the overriding provision of the Act removes all inconsistent custom and text.

1. Equal rights from the appointed day. Rights in coparcenary property among male and female members of a joint Hindu family are equal on and from 9 September 2005; the daughter of a coparcener has the same rights and liabilities in the coparcenary property as she would have had if she had been a son. The Act is beneficial legislation placed on the statute book to benefit a woman's vulnerable position in society, and is to be given full effect.

1. The decisive rhetorical step. It is an odd proposition that while females have equal rights of inheritance in the property, that right should be curtailed when it comes to the management of the same. The clear language of the provision stipulates no such restriction. The provision is socially beneficial legislation giving equal rights of inheritance to Hindu males and females and recognising women as coparceners; courts must therefore be extremely vigilant against any endeavour to curtail or fetter that statutory guarantee. The disqualification having been removed, there is no reason why Hindu women should be denied the position of karta: if a male member can be karta by virtue of being the first born eldest, so can a female member.

1. Two further points on her own position. Her father's right in the family did not dissipate but was inherited by her; and her marriage did not alter her right to inherit the coparcenary to which she succeeded on her father's death.

It opens the question of what the 2005 amendment actually achieved. The argument runs: coparcenership was the qualification for managership; the bar on women was that they were not coparceners; the bar is gone; therefore the disability is gone.

It disposes of the argument that the amendment gave women a share but left the ancient rule of male management untouched, and the argument that a married daughter loses her coparcenary rights.

It does not decide any question about the date of the father's death — the point settled later by the Supreme Court, which held that the father need not have been alive on 9 September 2005 — though it is relevant that the plaintiff's own father had died well before the amendment. Nor does it enlarge the karta's powers: as counsel pointed out, the karta's position is itself restrained, since no rights may be created and no property appropriated to the detriment or exclusion of any coparcener.