Prakash v Phulavati

Facts

• A daughter claimed a share in ancestral coparcenary property, relying on the rights conferred by the substituted Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, as amended in 2005. The father coparcener in question had died before the amendment came into force on 9 September 2005. The question was whether the daughter could still claim coparcenary rights despite her father's death predating the amendment.

Issue

1. Whether a daughter can claim coparcenary rights under the amended Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act where her father coparcener died before the amendment came into force.

Held

• The Supreme Court held that the 2005 amendment operates prospectively. For a daughter to claim rights as a coparcener under the amended provision, both the daughter and her father must have been alive on 9 September 2005, the date the amendment came into force. Since the father had died before this date in the facts before the Court, the daughter's claim to coparcenary rights under the amendment failed. The Court clarified that the amendment does not revive claims or reopen successions that had already become final before the amendment.
• Note: This requirement of the father being alive on 9 September 2005 was disapproved by a three-judge bench in Vineeta Sharma v Rakesh Sharma (2020), which held that coparcenary rights flow from birth and do not depend on the father's survival as on the date of the amendment.

Ratio Decidendi

Coparcenary rights conferred on daughters by the 2005 amendment to Section 6 require the survival of the father coparcener as on the date the amendment took effect; the provision does not operate retrospectively to benefit daughters whose fathers died before that date. (Later disapproved.)