REVANASIDDAPPA V. MALLIKARJUN
In 2003, a Division Bench (two judges) of the Supreme Court in Jinia Keotin v. Kumar Sitaram Manjhi (2002 INSC 576) (“Jinia Keotin”) held that a child born from a void marriage (a marriage that does not have any legal effect) or a voidable marriage (a marriage that may be annulled by one spouse) would have no right to claim inheritance in ancestral or coparcenary property (joint-family property). This judgment was later followed in Neelamma v. Sarojamma [(2006) 9 SCC 612] (“Neelamma”) and Bharatha Matha v. R Vijaya Renganathan (2010 INSC 328) (“Bharatha Matha”).
The present appeal at the Supreme Court (Revanasiddappa v. Mallikarjun) was filed against the judgment of the Karnataka High Court by illegitimate sons of one Shri Shivasharanappa. The sons claimed a share in ancestral properties. The wife of Shivasharanappa, along with her two sons, stated that Shivasharanappa had married a second woman while still married to her and therefore, the children born out of this second marriage are not entitled to any share in Shivasharanappa’s ancestral property.
At the Supreme Court, a Division Bench (two judges) in Revanasiddappa v. Mallikarjun (2011 INSC 251) doubted the correctness of the decisions in Jinia Keotin, Neelamma, and Bharatha Matha and referred the case to a larger bench of three-judges.
The Supreme Court held that children born out of void or voidable marriages are entitled to a share in their parents' ancestral properties. The Court clarified that such children are not coparceners in the ancestral property (a person who shares equally with others in the inheritance of an undivided property) and cannot claim an equal share in the ancestral property in their own right. However, children from void and voidable marriages are entitled to a right in their parents’ share of the ancestral property. The judgment of the Court was authored by Chief Justice Chandrachud.
Legitimacy of children born out of void or voidable marriages
The Supreme Court found that Section 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (“HMA”) provides that children born out of void and voidable marriages though “illegitimate”, shall be treated as legitimate (¶12). The Court noted that the law has a socially beneficial purpose of removing the stigma of illegitimacy faced by children of such marriages, since the children themselves are innocent (¶3).
Right in Property of Parents
The Supreme Court noted that an illegitimate who is deemed to be legitimate under Section 16(3) of the HMA will only have inheritance rights in the property of their parents and not have any rights in the property of a person other than their parents (¶42).
The Court noted children born out of valid marriage are coparceners in the Hindu joint-family property and they have a share in the ancestral property apart from and equal to their parents. On the death of their parents, they are then equally entitled to a share of their parents property. On the other hand, children born out of void and voidable marriage are not coparceners in the Hindu-Joint family property, they are only entitled to a share in their parents’ property (¶43).
The Court noted that to ascertain the property of parents, Section 6(3) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 provides that for a Hindu Mitakshara coparcener, their share in the property would be the part that would have been allotted to him if a partition had taken place immediately before his death (¶40). Thus, the Court concluded that the children born out of void and voidable marriage are entitled to: (i) a share in the ancestral property that would be allotted to their parents on partition, and (ii) a share in the self-acquired property of the parents (¶50).
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