Centre to amend Hindu Succession Act

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, JAN. 6. The Centre has decided to introduce amendments to the Hindu Succession Act (HSA), 1956 shortly to confer equal property rights to women, notwithstanding the poor response from the States for this proposal.

In August last year, the Centre sought the views of State Governments and Union Territory administrations on the amendments in the HSA, as per the recommendations of the Law Commission of India. Personal laws come under the Concurrent List of the Constitution and are administered by the Centre and the States.

In response to this, except Madhya Pradesh, no other State Government sent its reply and this has perplexed the Centre which is keen on conferring coparcenary property rights to women. What has shocked the Centre is that even the BJP-ruled States did not send their reply.

However, having declared 2001 as the ``Women's Empowerment Year'', the Centre is going ahead with the proposal to bring in amendments to the HSA as recommended by the Law Commission.

The Government hopes that this move will remove the discrimination against women in sharing the property.

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Section  : National
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