Property of a Hindu Female to be Her Absolute Property

According to prevailing Indian laws, a female Hindu is the absolute owner of her property. Legal rights of women to own property was not officially recognized till the introduction of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The Act transformed the limited ownership of a woman into absolute ownership.

Indian Law on Woman’s Absolute Right to Own Property

Section 14 (1), of the Act, provides that any property possessed by a female Hindu, whether acquired before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be possessed by her as the complete owner and not as a limited owner. With this section, Indian laws revolutionized a woman’s right to own property.

Further, the Act defines ‘property’ as, any movable and immovable property acquired by a female Hindu by inheritance or devise, or at a partition, or instead of maintenance/arrears of maintenance, or by gift, or by her own efforts, or by purchase or by prescription, or in any other manner. It includes any such property held by her as ‘stridhana,’ immediately before the commencement of this Act.

However, the broad definition of property in section 14 (1) is restricted by the provisions of section 14 (2) of the Act. It provides that nothing contained in section 14 (1) is applicable to anything acquired by gift/will or any other instrument or under a decree/order of a civil court or under an award where the terms of the aforementioned things prescribe a restricted estate in such property.

Indian Laws: Absolute Ownership of Property Rests with the Hindu Woman

The ambiguity and anomaly in several provisions of Indian laws on a woman’s right to own property was put to rest by the Supreme Court.

In a landmark case, Tulasamma and Others v. V. Shesha Reddy (deceased) by LRs, Citation, (1977) 3 SCR 261, the complainant was a widow. The inherited family property was co-owned by her husband and his step-brother. However, the widow claimed for maintenance from the step brother but a few years later, she entered into a compromise with the step brother. Thereby, she was allotted the property, with no power of alienation. Nonetheless, after the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the property was alienated by the appellant.

This act of the widow was challenged by Shesha Reddy, in the Supreme Court, on the grounds of breach of terms of the compromise. The Supreme Court dismissed the plea and observed that section 14 (1) applied in this case and cannot be superseded by section 14 (2). As a result, Tulasamma became the absolute owner of the property.