Grandson Has No Birthright in Property His Father Got in Partition of Grandfather’s Estate: Supreme Court
Upholding a Madras High Court ruling, the Supreme Court held that property passing to a son under Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act becomes his individual property, so his son cannot claim a share by birth.
The Supreme Court has ruled that a grandson cannot claim a share by birth in land that came to his father through the partition of the grandfather’s estate, because such property becomes the father’s own individual property under Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, LiveLaw reported.
A bench of Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice Sunita Agarwal dismissed the appeal in J Rajesh (Minor) v. M Kumaran (Dead) through LRs and upheld the Madras High Court’s decision.
The dispute
After the grandfather’s death, his property was divided in a partition suit filed by an aunt. A 1994 compromise decree gave the land in question to the appellant’s father; the appellant was born the same year. In 1997 the father sold the land to two buyers, and that year the minor, through his mother, sued for partition and a half share, saying it was joint family property.
A Chennai city civil court granted a preliminary decree, but the first appellate court set it aside, and the High Court agreed that the grandson had no birthright in property that reached his father through partition.
What the Supreme Court held
- Once the grandfather’s property passed to his Class I heirs under Section 8 and was partitioned, the father’s share became his exclusive property.
- A grandson is not a Class I heir, so Section 8 gives him no right in the grandfather’s property. The court treated Section 8 as a self-contained rule that does not preserve the older personal-law right of a son’s son during his father’s lifetime.
- Relying on CWT v. Chander Sen and Radha Bai v. Ram Narayan, the bench said heirs under Section 8 hold as tenants in common, so no coparcenary continued.
- Since the appellant was not a coparcener when the succession opened, neither Section 6 nor Section 29-A of the Tamil Nadu amendment helped him. He had also not challenged the compromise decree or the sale deeds.
The appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs.
— Legal Desk
Featured image: Madras High Court – panoramio by Raki_Man, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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