QUESTION: This is with reference to the answer provided under the heading “Succession of Hindu Women under Hindu Law”. I differ with the opinion provided in the column. I wish to draw the attention of the readers to the following judgments of various courts in India on the above subject: (i) Sugalabai v Gundappa A Maradi and others Karnataka High Court dated September 18, 2007; (ii) Damalanka Gangaraju and others v Nandipatti Vijayalakshmi and others Andhra Pradesh High Court dated March 21, 2007; and (iii) Pravat Chandra Patnaik and others v Sara Chandra Patnaik and others AIR 2008 Orissa 133. The principles laid down in the aforesaid judgments are: (i) The Central enactment of 2005 prevails over the State Act and the latter is deemed to have been repealed; (ii) After September 9, 2005, all the daughters have to be treated as coparceners entitled to equal shares, irrespective of the fact whether they are majors or minors and irrespective of the date of their marriage and (iii) so long as the final partition by metes and bounds has not taken place, the benefits of the amended act have to be made applicable (S. Sai Reddy v Narayana Reddy) Supreme Court [1993] 3 SCC 647. As such, the matter may be clarified.
ANSWER: The propositions in the above letter from Sahadev Kunapuli, Hyderabad, are from the settled law on the subject with which the answers thus far in the column Tax Forum is in agreement so that it is not known where the reader found reason to differ from all the opinions thus far stated in these columns.
One more citation to the reader's list is the decision of the Madras High Court in Parameswari @ Gnanasakthi v Raja Ratinam (2010) 5 CTC 51 discussed in The Hindu dated April 18, 2011, which is also not in conflict with the propositions cited by the reader.
