Property father inherits after 1956 is his own, children have no birthright: HC

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that property inherited by a father after 1956 becomes his self-acquired estate, not ancestral land. Under the pre-1956 position, inherited property automatically turned ancestral and his children gained a birthright. But the high court has clarified that the post-1956 legal regime creates no such entitlement, leaving the next generation with no basis to interfere in the father’s dealings.

The judgment by Justice Virinder Aggarwal is significant as it makes it clear that property inherited by a son after 1956 through intestate succession loses all ancestral and coparcenary attributes. The land devolving upon a male Hindu under Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act became his individual, separate property, leaving his children with no birthright and no locus to challenge his alienations.

The ruling came in a regular second appeal filed in 1994. The bench was dealing with distinction between the pre-1956 and post-1956 legal positions under the Hindu law.

The bench observed that coparcenary property – ancestral property held jointly by members of a Hindu Undivided Family where members acquire an undivided interest in the property by birth – devolved primarily by survivorship before 1956. But the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, introduced succession as the mode of devolution, particularly under Section 8.

In simple terms it means ancestral or coparcenary property passed automatically by survivorship before 1956. This meant that when one male coparcener died, his share did not go to his individual heirs. Instead, it got absorbed into the joint family, and the remaining coparceners enlarged their share. Children also got a birthright the moment they were born.

After 1956, the Hindu Succession Act changed this. It introduced succession as the default rule of inheritance. Now, when a male Hindu dies, his property goes to his Class-I heirs, such as widow, daughter, sons.

Justice Aggarwal has held that inheritance takes place only under Section 8 once succession opens after 1956, and the son receives the property as “individual and separate property”, not as a coparcener. Since the father in the case before the bench inherited land in the 1960s, Justice Aggarwal concluded that the estate “could not be treated as ancestral in the hands of the son” and therefore the sons “had no locus to stall or challenge the sale deeds executed by their father”.

Justice Aggarwal asserted that the presence of Class-I female heirs at the time of the grandfather’s death — widow and daughter — barred any possibility of survivorship. “Each heir inherited an independent share as tenants-in-common, not as coparceners,” the court observed, making it clear that the father’s share matured only upon the predecessor’s death and therefore bore the character of obstructed heritage, not ancestral property.

Why the judgment matters

Children often claim a birthright in land their father inherited from his own parents, assuming it is automatically ancestral. The high court has now made it clear that once inheritance happens after 1956, the property becomes the father’s exclusive and self-acquired estate, leaving children with no automatic share and no legal ground to block a sale or transfer. In practical terms, it removes a major source of litigation within families, clarifies how inheritance works today, and tells exactly when a property is — and is not — ancestral under the Hindu law.