Properties vs Proper ties

Children inherit immediate pain, sorrow, dejection, a sudden shift from comfortable dependency to uncomfortable dependency, and confused independence when parents die. Inheritance of property comes next. While the emotional pain fades into memory, the material inheritance may lead to prolonged family feuds. The combination of property disputes and strained family relations often results in conflicts and disputes among bereaved family members.

The Mediation Act of 2023 marked a paradigm shift in resolving disputes related to family, matrimonial, consumer, commercial, and inheritance matters. Families, couples, and disputing siblings can now settle their differences through mediators and mediation service providers rather than airing their grievances in public.

The complex Hindu Succession Act of 1956 outlines how property is divided when someone inherits from an elderly person. Female children did not receive an equal share of their parents’ or ancestors’ property until recently. Children born from void or voidable marriages were not given a share of their biological parents’ property until the Supreme Court
of India ruled that they can inherit their parents’ joint Hindu family property under the Mitakshara Law.

Following landmark cases like Arunachala Gounder vs Ponnusamy, 2022, and Vineeta Sharma vs Rakesh Sharma, 2020, daughters now have an equal share in their parents’ property. In Revana Siddappa vs Mallikarjun (2011), which involved Section 16(3) of the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act, inheritance rights were extended to children from void or voidable marriages. Moreover, the Supreme Court ruled in June 2022, in Kattukandi Edathil Krishnan & Another vs Valsan & Others, that children of live-in partners are legitimate.

Two types of inheritance cases commonly return to court: First, a legal heir certificate allows the claimant to approach banks and investors to reclaim moveable property or shares. Explaining the various classes of legal heirs can be challenging. This certificate is used when the property owner dies without a will, as a will simplifies family disputes. Second, property succession occurs when the original owner or ancestors die without leaving a will. According to national judicial data grid statistics, more than 78% of the 1,09,93,516 civil cases pending in Indian courts are related to inheritance, succession, ancestral property shares, disputes over sharing property with female siblings, legitimacy of children from void and voidable marriages, and property percentages. 

Resolving Disputes

Instead of fighting within the family, taking disputes to the street, or knocking on the doors of the courts, there is now an alternative. Family members can sit down and resolve their disputes without external interference or seek a neutral mediator to resolve their disputes privately.

In one Supreme Court case, Justices Rajesh Bindal and P B Varale observed, “The case in hand was one of the most appropriate cases in which the Court should have attempted to resolve the dispute through alternate means, namely mediation and conciliation. In Afcons Infrastructure Limited vs Cherian Varkey Construction Company Private Limited and Others, this Court held that disputes involving partition or division among family members, coparceners, or co-owners should typically be resolved through the Alternative Disputes Redressal (ADR) process. The courts must investigate these methods for amicable resolution of family disputes.”

In another case, Mahendra Nath Soral filed a suit for partition over properties left by his late father, naming his two brothers and two sisters as defendants. The appeal concerned only the partition of roof rights over a plot in Kota. The Court noted that this case exemplifies the bitterness among the legal heirs of the late Rameshwar Nath Soral regarding the partition of his properties. While stating that it is ‘properties’ versus ‘proper ties’. ‘Short term gain’ vs ‘Long term relations’, the Court observed, “One can either get a share in the properties that too by litigating or can maintain proper ties amongst the family members with little give and take and not going to the extent of minute details.” The latest example for preferring a mediation for a court’s judgement is of the case of the siblings of industrialist Baba Kalyani. 

To make mediation more effective, we need more trained mediators. Enough awareness-raising on mediation is another requirement. Establishing and making the Mediation Council of India is an immediate need that can address issues of institutionalising mediation in India.

(The writer is a former Senior International Advisor, UNDP)