Grandson can’t claim birthright in property after partition: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has ruled that a son cannot claim coparcenary rights in his grandfather’s ancestral property after it has been partitioned among the grandfather’s legal heirs, with the share allotted to his father becoming his exclusive property under the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.

The bench of Justices Augustine George Masih and Sunita Agarwal delivered the judgment on November 6, clarifying the inheritance rights of grandchildren in partitioned ancestral property. (ANI)Dismissing a 29-year-old partition suit filed on behalf of a minor son who claimed half of his grandfather’s property, the court held that once the property devolved upon the grandfather’s Class I legal heirs and was divided among them, the joint coparcenary ceased to exist.

The grandson could not subsequently claim a share in the property allotted to his father merely on the basis of his birth. A bench of justices Augustine George Masih and Sunita Agarwal, in a judgment delivered on November 6, held that the property inherited by the father under Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act became his individual property, leaving no scope for his son to assert an independent coparcenary interest in it.

“The property of grandfather of the appellant devolved upon the Class I heirs in the order of succession specified therein, and they shall take the property simultaneously to the exclusion of all other heirs,” Justice Agarwal, who authored the judgment, said.

Under the 1956 Act, Class I heirs include a deceased Hindu male’s widow, son, daughter and mother who inherit the property simultaneously, ahead of all other categories of heirs. The case originated in 1997 when the appellant, the grandson, was still a minor and his mother, acting as his natural guardian, filed a suit seeking partition and possession of half of a 1,811-square-foot property in Chennai.

He claimed that the property originally belonged to his grandfather and that he had acquired a coparcenary interest in it by birth. However, the property had already been divided among his grandfather’s legal heirs following a partition suit instituted in 1993 by the appellant’s paternal aunt.

A compromise decree was passed on February 3, 1994, under which the appellant’s father, who was one of the legal heirs, received a share measuring 1,811 square feet. He subsequently sold the property through two sale deeds executed in April 1997.

The appellant, who was born in January 1994, contended that since the compromise decree was passed after his birth, he had already acquired coparcenary rights in the ancestral property and should have been made a party to the partition proceedings.

He also relied on the Tamil Nadu amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, which recognised daughters as coparceners by birth, arguing that the amendment preserved the coparcenary character of the property. Rejecting the argument, the Supreme Court explained that when a Hindu male dies intestate, his property devolves upon the Class I heirs under the 1956 Act.

A grandson whose father is alive is not included in the list of Class I heirs and cannot claim a direct share in his grandfather’s property through succession. The court relied on its earlier ruling in Commissioner of Wealth Tax Vs Chander Sen (1986), which held that property inherited by a son under the 1956 Act devolves upon him in his individual capacity and does not automatically become Hindu undivided family property as regards to his own son.

Applying these principles, the bench said that the grandfather’s property had devolved upon his surviving sons and daughters as Class I heirs, each of whom became entitled to an individual share. The compromise decree of February 3, 1994, subsequently made each heir the exclusive owner of the property falling to their respective shares.

“With the partition, the property of the grandfather of the appellant ceased to be joint family property, in as much as all heirs succeeded the same as tenants in common and not as joint tenants, and joint coparcenary did not continue,” the judgment said.

It further noted that the succession had opened upon the grandfather’s death, which was before the appellant’s birth, as evident from the partition suit instituted in 1993. Consequently, there was no question of any interest in the property devolving upon him subsequently.

The court also rejected the reliance on Section 29-A of the Hindu Succession (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 1989, and the unamended Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, holding that neither provision could confer coparcenary rights on the appellant in the facts of the case.

The bench pointed out that the 1997 suit had sought only partition and possession of half the property and did not challenge either the 1994 compromise decree or the two sale deeds executed by the father in favour of the purchasers.

The father, who remained ex parte throughout the proceedings, died in 2024. The dispute travelled through the trial court and the Madras high court before reaching the Supreme Court in a special leave petition in 2011. The trial court had initially granted a preliminary decree for partition, but the first appellate court set it aside, a decision subsequently upheld by the high court in August 2010.

Utkarsh Anand is the National Legal Editor at Hindustan Times, where he leads the newspaper's coverage of the Supreme Court, constitutional law, the judiciary and the Union law ministry. He joined Hindustan Times in 2020 after stints at Press Trust of India (PTI), The Indian Express and CNN-News18, and has over two decades of experience reporting on law, governance and public policy.

His work has focussed on some of India's most consequential constitutional and legal developments, including the Supreme Court's judgments on Article 370, marriage equality, decriminalisation of homosexuality, the Babri Masjid dispute, electoral reforms and judicial appointments.

He specialises in making complex legal proceedings and judgments accessible to...