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Uma Mahesh Bandekar and Anr. v. Vivek Sadanand Marathe and Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 359Decided 13 Mar 2019
Civil Appeal No. 2961 of 2019
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

A family in Goa was involved in inventory (estate-partition) proceedings over the estate of deceased parents, which included a tenanted "lease premises" run as a family partnership business. The brother, who was managing the estate, left the leased premises out of the list of assets, arguing that a married daughter could not inherit tenancy rights under Goa's rent law. The married daughter (appellant) objected, but both the trial court and the Bombay High Court (Goa Bench) ruled against her, holding that a married daughter did not qualify as a "tenant" under the Goa rent control law.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that both lower courts erred by applying the Goa rent control law at all: that law only governs landlord-tenant disputes, whereas this case was purely about inheritance/succession, governed instead by the Portuguese Civil Code (as it applied in Goa) and the subsequently enacted Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceeding Act, 2012. Under both those succession laws, there is no distinction between married and unmarried daughters, or between daughters and sons, in matters of inheritance, all children succeed equally regardless of sex, age, or marital status. The Court therefore set aside the lower courts' orders, ruled that the married daughter did have a right of succession in the leased premises, and directed that the already-finalized partition be amended to include it.

Lesson Learnt

In India's succession law (including Goa's distinct civil code regime), married daughters have the same inheritance rights as sons and unmarried daughters: rent-control or tenancy statutes, which serve an entirely different purpose, cannot be used to deny a daughter's share in inherited property.

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

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