The present Succession Act, while wholly replaces the Dayabhaga system of, inheritance, it in view of Section 6 of the Act, does not, in any way interfere with the special rights of a member of a Mitakshara coparcener, except when such a member dies leaving female heirs of class I of the Schedule; in that case the succession will be governed by the present Act, which will be either testamentary under Section 30 or intestate according to Section B.
Succession in respect of property held in absolute severality by the last owner; governed by the Mitakshara will, however be regulated by the new rules laid down in the Act, replacing those prevalent hitherto fore. But the Act does not wholly abrogate the Mitakshara and the Dayabhaga Schools of Hindu Law.
They will still govern the Hindus in matters not specifically dealt with by the Act, e.g., the coparcener’s right of unity of ownership of the family properties. Under the Dayabhaga, right is to seek partition, the Karta’s or the Manager’s right to alienate family properties and to incur debts binding on the family, etc.
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ADVERTISEMENTS:
Inheritance to females, under the original Hindu Law, was governed by rules different from those which governed inheritance of the property of males, under the different schools of Hindu Law. While males succeeding as heirs whether to a male or a female took the property absolutely, the females succeeding as heirs whether to a male or a female took a limited estate or life estate in the property inherited by them except in certain cases in Bombay State and on her death the property passed not to her heirs, but to the next heir of the person whom she inherited it. It is only in respect Stridhan property that she had absolute right of disposal; and that too only during her maidenhood and widowhood, but during the covertures she had no power to dispose of without the consent of her husband, except such property which was her sagdayika stridhan.
Section 74 of the Act abolishes Hindu woman’s limited estate and confers upon her absolute rights on all properties including both movable and immovable property acquired by a Hindu female by inheritance or devise, or at a partition, or in lieu of maintenance, or by gift from any person, a relative or stranger or by her own skill or exertion, or by purchase or by prescription, or in any other manner whatsoever and also any such property held by her as stridhan before the commencement of the Act.
Under either system of law, the Dayabhaga and the Mitakshara, two or more persons inheriting jointly took as tenants in common except in such cases, as of two or more widows succeeding as heirs to their husband, or of two or more daughters succeeding as heirs to their father who took joint tenants with rights of survivorship. The Act maintains this principle of successors taking as tenants in common with the modification that the daughters will also take as tenant in common. (Vide Sec. 19).