New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has ruled that a woman can be a karta or head of a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF).
In a judgment passed on 4 December, a bench comprising justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna observed, “We, therefore, conclude that neither the legislature nor the traditional Hindu law in any way limits the right of a woman to be a karta. Also, societal perceptions cannot be a reason to deny the rights expressly conferred by legislature.”
The court was hearing an appeal in a family dispute over who could be declared the karta of a HUF.
The 2005 amendment to Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, gave equal rights to daughters in such ancestral property. So, the amendment allowed daughters to be recognised as coparceners by birth in the family, similar to sons.
The court now observed, “To say that a woman can be a coparcener but not a karta would be giving an interpretation which would not only be anomalous but also against the stated object of introduction of amendment.”
The court said that the “disinclination in accepting a woman as a karta, despite having been conferred equal coparcenary rights as men, has emerged in the present case, leaving the ball in our Court”.
The HUF in this case was originally constituted by the grandfather of the parties involved in the case in 1963. Their grandfather had five sons, and after the demise of his last son in 2006, the question of who should take over as the karta arose among the grandchildren.
The eldest coparcener among them was the grandfather’s eldest granddaughter. While a few cousins supported her being declared the karta, a few others raised objections. A single judge of the high court then declared her to be the karta. This was challenged before a two-judge bench by one of her cousins.
Upholding the single’s judge’s order, the high court now asserted, “To give any other interpretation to deny the right of a woman to be a coparcener and consequently a karta, would strike at the very object of giving the woman an equal right to property as a man. The right to manage the property is incidental to ownership, and it is absurd to claim that the owner of an estate is curtailed from the right to manage it.”
‘Real change, one step at a time’
The court began its judgment by quoting the late US Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time”. The bench then spoke of how men and women were historically born equal, but “with the advancement of civilisation and hierarchical division of society, women have been pigeonholed according to gender roles which progressed into an act of prelation that has relegated them to a secondary position in society.”
“Consequently, the once egalitarian society became a breeding ground for chauvinism and discrimination in the form of sati, child marriage, sexual harassment, domestic violence, dowry harassment and such like disparages,” the bench observed.
It then noted that the legislature has, time and again, brought reforms to “overcome this bigotry and free women”. While it said that despite robust legislation, real change has been slow, it highlighted the role of the courts in upholding the rights of women.
A joint Hindu family consists of all people lineally descended from a common ancestor and includes their wives and unmarried daughters. As against this, a Hindu coparcenary is a much narrower body. It consists of the ‘propositus’ (the person from whom a line of descent is traced), and three generations of his descendants. Coparcenary property is that which is inherited by a Hindu from his father, grandfather, or great grandfather.
The property in coparcenary is held under joint ownership, and only a coparcener has a right to demand a partition of this property. Before 2005, the coparceners included only sons, grandsons, and great grandsons. But the amendment changed this.
The court said that the 2005 amendment was a reform for the empowerment of women, but added, “However, the unwavering certitude in marginalisation of women, so deeply entrenched in society, is perceived to be imperilled by the prospect of a woman taking the position of karta in an HUF, a role that was traditionally assumed by men.”
Who can be a karta
The court noted that a manager or karta of a joint Hindu family has been described as a senior member of the family who is entitled to manage the properties or business, or looks after the family’s interests on behalf of the other members.
Referring to precedents, the court said that birth in the joint Hindu family, seniority by age and the status of being a coparcener are the necessary qualifications to become a karta.
It noted that traditional law had never prohibited a female from being a manager “but the requisite of being the ‘senior most male’ was the necessary corollary of the fact that only male members of the joint Hindu family who were born within the degrees of coparcenary, were given the status of a coparcener”.
This limitation, it said, was redressed by the 2005 amendment, which conferred the status of coparcener on women, putting their rights on par with those of sons. It asserted that the explicit language of the 2005 amendment makes it “abundantly clear that…conferring ‘same’ rights would include all other rights that a coparcener has, which includes a right to be a karta”.
The court asserted that the contention that the husband of a female karta would have indirect control over the activities of the HUF of her father’s family is “a parochial mindset”. It observed, “Ergo, a woman who has absolute ownership in a property cannot be denied a right to manage it on the warped reasoning that she may get influenced by her in-laws. Thus, societal apprehension and reluctance can never truncate legislative enactments to do away with patriarchal discrimination.”
Also read: Daughter’s equal right to ancestral property — here’s what landmark SC judgment says