The Supreme Court on August 18 reserved its judgment on whether children born out of invalid, void and voidable Hindu marriages can inherit their parents’ ancestral property.
A void or invalid marriage is not enforceable in law or is unlawful. A voidable marriage has to be annulled through a decree.
The case, before a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, is focused on an amended provision in the Hindu Marriage Act, Section 16(3). This provision deals with the inheritance rights of children from void or voidable marriages.
The case was referred to a larger Bench in 2011 after a Division Bench of the top court refused to follow past precedents and championed the cause of children born out of illegitimate marriages.
“The birth of a child in such a relationship has to be viewed independently of the relationship of the parents. A child born in such a relationship is innocent and is entitled to all the rights which are given to other children born in valid marriage. This is the crux of the amendment in Section 16(3),” the Division Bench of Justices (retired) G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly had written in their 2011 judgment in the Revanasidappa v Mallikarjun case.
The Division Bench had held that such children would have a right to any property that belonged to their parents, whether they were self-acquired or ancestral. The Bench had however clarified that the children’s claims would be limited to the property of their parents and no other relation.
“With changing social norms of legitimacy in every society, including ours, what was illegitimate in the past may be legitimate today. The concept of legitimacy stems from social consensus, in the shaping of which various social groups play a vital role,” Justice Ganguly, who authored the 2011 judgment, had observed.
On August 18, hearing the 12-year-old reference, Chief Justice Chandrachud seemed to agree with the Division Bench’s findings that children from void and voidable marriages had rights over the property, whether self-acquired or ancestral, of their parents.
But the Bench said the cardinal question was when exactly did an ancestral property become the property of a parent of such a child.
“But we are actually concerned about the acquisition of interest… when does an ancestral property become the property of the parents for the purpose of Section 16(3)?” the Chief Justice asked.
