Dayabhaga Family Rights

coparcenary. This right was fluctuated according the circumstances, meaning to say the share diminishes when anybody in the family takes birth and diminishes when any male member of the family dies. This school also provides the inheritance by succession but only to the property separately owned by an individual male or female. The females are included as heirs to this kind of property by Mitakshara Law.

On the other hand, Dayabhaga Law advocates for succession rather than survivorship as a rule. Neither sons nor daughters become coparceners at birth nor do they have rights in the family property during their father’s lifetime . But on his death of any member in the family other members inherit as tenants-in-common. Daughters also got right

But gradually she was treated to be lower social status and considered as a dependent with barely negligible property rights. As per the text of Baudhayana, women had no place in Hindu scheme of inheritance and “Females were devoid of powers and incompetent to inherit.” But by virtue of special texts specified female heirs were given the right inherit.

However the Dayabhaga School and the Banaras and Mithila sub-schools of Mitakshara law recognized five females’ relations as being entitled to inherit namely, widow, daughter, mother, paternal grandmother, and paternal great grandmother and the Madras and Bombay sub-schools recognized the heritable capacity of a larger number of female heirs .

The position of females was worst during the British regime, but in 19th century some social reforms movements raised the issue of amelioration of women’s position in society. The earliest legislation brought females into the scheme of inheritance as the Hindu law of Inheritance Act, 1929. This Act, conferred inheritance rights on three females heirs i.e., son’s daughter, daughter’s daughters and sister (thereby creating a limited restriction on the rule of survivorship). During this period another landmark legislation conferring ownership right on a woman was the Hindu women’s Right to Property Act XVIII of 1937. This Act brought about revolutionary changes in the Hindu Law of all schools, and affected not only the law

The supreme Court and the various High Court’s of the country while dealing with the joint family property rights of Hindus interpret the position of the Mitakshara law that supports such a static relation as a custom based law.

In the State Bank of India v. Ghamandi Ram the Supreme Court of India elaborated the system of Mitakshara law. Court stated textual authority of the Mitakshara lays down in express terms that the joint family property is held in trust for the joint family members then living and thereafter, to be born.

Before the commencement of the Act of 1956 the property held by a Hindu female was classified under two heads: (1) Stridhan and (2) Hindu Women’s estate. The former was regarded as her absolute property over which she had full ownership and on her death it devolved upon her heirs. The later was considered to be her limited estate with respect to which her powers of alienation were limited. Such property on her death devolved not on heirs but upon the next heirs of the last full owner. But later on the section 14 of the Act of 1956