Hindu Succession Act, 1956 – s.14(1) – Property of a female Hindu to be her absolute property – Right of the legal heir of Hindu widow to enforce her right of succession in the unpartitioned joint hindu family property by virtue of s.14(1), when neither the widow nor her legal heir in possession of the suit land:
Held: For establishing full ownership on the undivided joint family estate u/s. 14(1), the Hindu female must not only be possessed of the property but she must have acquired the property and such acquisition must be either by way of inheritance or devise, or at a partition or in lieu of maintenance or arrears of maintenance or by gift or be her own skill or exertion, or by purchase or by prescription – On going through the pleadings in the Revenue suit for partition filed by legal heir, it is clear that that the widow or the legal heir himself were never in possession of the suit property – As a matter of fact, the suit was filed by pleading that the suit property was a joint Hindu family property and appellantbeneficiary of the unpartitioned estate by way of Will, had consented to give half share of the suit property to the legal heir on his demand – This assertion was denied by appellant – Widow was never in possession of the suit property because the civil suit was filed by her claiming the relief of title as well as possession and the same was dismissed and she was held only entitled to receive maintenance from the undivided estate – This finding of the civil Court was never challenged – Since, widow was never in possession of the suit property, as a necessary corollary the Revenue suit for partition claiming absolute ownership u/s. 14(1) could not be maintained by her adopted son, plaintiff by virtue of inheritance – Thus, the impugned judgments restoring the judgment and decree of the Revenue Court that the plaintiff being the sole legal heir of the widow has coparcenary rights over the lands belonging to widow’s husband, cannot be sustained and are set aside. [Paras 17, 24-28]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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