Equal distribution of ancestral assets under UCC

Both sons and daughters will have equal rights to ancestral property, Uttarakhand’s draft Uniform Civil Code has proposed, which will apply to all religious communities and include legitimate, illegitimate and adopted children.

Current laws have differing mandates for succession and inheritance. The rights of Hindus to succession are governed by laws such as the Hindu Succession Act of 1956. Muslim succession rights are covered by the Quran, shariat law and Muslim Personal Law Application, 1937. Jews, Christians and Parsis adhere to the Indian Succession Act of 1925, which contains particular inheritance guidelines.

The proposed code will bring uniformity in succession and inheritance rights for all religions, dissolving personal laws of all of them.

Illegitimate and adopted children, children born through surrogacy and children born through assisted reproductive technology are also to be considered a biological children of a couple, the draft code suggested.

After the death of a person, his or her spouse and children are given equal rights in his property along with parents in the proposed code. The property rights of the child in a woman’s womb has also been protected.

However, if a person wills his or her property to anybody, that will take precedence over the rights of all other inheritors, it added.

The Bill has made provisions that the immediate family of the person who dies without leaving a registered will, will get an equal share of the property. In case there is no immediate family, the property would be equally shared between the second line, which would be immediate first cousins from the paternal side. If there is no claimant, then others would be invited to stake claim.

“The estate of a person dying intestate shall devolve...firstly, upon heirs son, daughter, widow, mother and father......Secondly, if there is no heir of Class 1, then upon the heirs being relatives brother, sister, brother’ son, sister’s son, brother’s daughter, sister’s daughter......,” The Bill said. “Thirdly, if there is no heir of the two classes....then upon the other relatives. Lastly, if there is no heir belonging to any of the clauses above, then by escheat upon the government; and the government shall take the estate subject to all the obligations and liabilities to which an heir would have been subject,”

The immediate family like son, daughter, widow or widower can succeed simultaneously and every surviving spouse and child will get an equal share, the code said.

For the purposes of intestate succession, there is no distinction between an heir who was born in the lifetime of an intestate and an heir who at the time of her or his death was only conceived in the womb, but who has been subsequently born alive, and such a child shall be deemed to be the successor of the intestate with effect from the time of the death of the intestate

“Where a widow or widower of any predeceased relative of an intestate has married again in the lifetime of the intestate, such widow or widower shall not succeed to the estate of the intestate,” the Bill said.

It further added that a person who commits murder or abets it shall be disqualified from succeeding to the estate of the person murdered or any other estate in furtherance of the succession to which she or he committed to abetted the commission of the murder.

In India, the rights of women regarding inheritance differ based on their religion, HT has earlier reported. Under the Hindu Succession Act of 1956, Hindu women have equal rights to inherit property from their parents and have the same entitlement as Hindu men. The rights of married and unmarried daughters are equal, and women are recognised as joint legal heirs for ancestral property partition.

However, under Muslim Personal Law, women are entitled to a share of their husband’s property, which is either 1/8th or 1/4th, depending on the presence of children. In the case of Muslim daughters, their share is half of that of sons.