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Revanasiddappa & Anr. vs. Mallikarjun & Ors. (2023 INSC 783)

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 783Decided 1 Sept 2023
Civil Appeal No. 2844 of 2011
D.Y. Chandrachud · J.B. Pardiwala · Manoj Misra

Background

Section 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 protects children born from marriages that are later declared void or voidable, treating them as "legitimate", but Section 16(3) limits their inheritance rights to only the "property of the parents," not other relatives. Earlier two-judge Bench decisions of the Supreme Court had taken conflicting views on whether such a child could inherit a share of ancestral/coparcenary (joint Hindu family) property through the parent, or only the parent's personal, self-acquired property. A two-judge Bench hearing the Revanasiddappa case doubted the correctness of these earlier rulings and referred the question to a larger, three-judge Bench to settle the law.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that a child made legitimate under Section 16(1) or 16(2) is not treated as an "illegitimate child" under the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, and can inherit through the parent's share in a joint Hindu family's coparcenary property, but only as it would be calculated via a notional partition (i.e., the share the parent would have received had the joint family property been divided immediately before the parent's death), not as a direct, independent coparcenary right of their own. This reading harmonises the Hindu Succession Act's inheritance rules with Section 16(3)'s limitation that such a child's rights extend only to "the property of the parents," not to the property of other family members. The reference was answered in these terms and the individual pending appeals were sent back to a two-judge Bench for final disposal on their own facts.

Lesson Learnt

Children born of a marriage that is later declared void or voidable are not shut out of inheriting a share of their family's ancestral property through their parent, but their claim is calculated based only on what their parent would have received on a hypothetical partition, not as an equal, independent right shared with other family coparceners.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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