INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - FEBRUARY 1st - FEBRUARY 15st - 2008
LAW COMMISSION SUBMITS REPORT ON SUCCESSION ACT
The Law Commission of India submitted its 204th Report on the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 to the Government. The Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Justice AR. Lakshmanan, former Supreme Court Judge presented the said Report to the Union Law Minister Dr. Hans Raj Bhardwaj on 5th February, 2008 in his office.
By the 2005 Amendment Act, four (4) categories of heirs which were hitherto placed in Class II were elevated to Class I heirs namely (i) Daughters sons son, (ii) Daughters daughters daughter; (iii) Daughters sons daughter; and (iv) Sons daughters daughter. While adding these categories to Class I, the corresponding entries in class II were not deleted. There was thus overlapping between class I and class II. In respect of these categories, the Commission has recommended that these four (4) categories should be deleted from class II heirs. The Commission has also suggested that the daughters sons son and sons daughters son should also be added in Class I.
The Commission further noted that whereas mother of Hindu coparcenary has been included in Class I heirs but father finds mention in Class II heirs category. The Commission has suggested that father should be placed alongwith mother in Class I and both together should take one share.
The Commission has also suggested revision of Class I heirs as Class I heirs list in the Schedule present, in the opinion of the Commission, quite a complex and cumbersome reading that is not amenable to easy understanding. The terms of reference with which the Commission had been set up, inter alia, enjoins upon it to revise the Central Act of general Importance so as to simplify them and to remove anomalies, ambiguities and inequities in law. Accordingly, the Commission has examined the Class I heirs list and recommended its revision in a simplified form that Class I heirs list consists of son, daughter, widow mother and father as per recommendations made herein and incase any son or daughter pre-deceased the intestate the Hindu Coparcenary dying intestate, their respective share will go to their children respectively and so on upto three generations upto great grand children. Instead of mentioning each of these descendents, it will be better to have a general provision in the matter with a view to avoid mentioning of each individual relation. Accordingly, the Commission has recommended revision of Class I heirs so as to say firstly, son, daughter, widow mother and father and secondly where any son or daughter dies before the intestates death, then children of such son or daughter, as the case may be, and widow of pre-deceased son, if any and this will go on in succession among the heirs of the descending branches.
It may be recalled that the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 was amended in 2005 by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 in order to give effect to the recommendations made by the Commission in its earlier (174th) Report in respect of property rights of women under the Hindu Law of Succession. The underlying idea was to remove the discrimination as contained under section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 by giving equal rights to daughters in the Hindu Mitakshara coparcenary property as the sons have. Accordingly, Section 6 was amended to provide that the daughter of a coparcenary will, by birth, become the coparcenary heir in her own right in the same manner as the son and will have the same rights and liabilities in the coparcenary property as she would have had if she had been a son. The Schedule of the Act too was amended accordingly to provide right of succession to the descendents through a daughter of a coparcenary dying intestate. Four additions were thus made to Class I heirs. However, while doing so, certain legislative inadvertences had crept in the law. Taking note of these discrepancies, the Commission suo-motu took up a further study of the Hindu Law of Succession.
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