The Supreme Court Thursday held that a tribal woman would be entitled to an equal share in ancestral property. The SC observed that denying a female heir right in the property unless otherwise prescribed in law only exacerbates gender division and discrimination, which the law should weed out.
In the absence of a specific law governing intestate succession among Scheduled Tribes, Justices Sanjay Karol and Joymalya Bagchi invoked the principle of “justice, equity and good conscience”, extending the provisions of the Central Provinces Laws Act, 1875 to the case and set aside the July 1, 2022 judgement of the Chhattisgarh HC, which had upheld the lower court order denying her the inheritance rights.
The appellants, who approached the SC challenging the HC order, were legal heirs of one Dhaiya, a woman from a Scheduled Tribe. Their mother was one of the six children — five sons and one daughter, of Bhajju alias Bhanjan Gond. They sought partition of a property belonging to their maternal grandfather, stating that their mother is entitled to an equal share in the scheduled property.
The court noted that the parties not being covered by any other inheritance law, the 1875 Act would apply. Though an argument was raised that the 1875 Act has been repealed in 2018. the bench pointed out that it has a clause which protects transactions before the repeal date.
“So, the right having been accrued in favour of the appellant-plaintiffs’ mother upon the death of her father, which was approximately 30 years before the filing of the plaint became crystallised and would not be affected by the fact that the Act was no longer in the statute book,” Justice Karol said writing for the Bench.
