The Madras High Court dismissed a woman’s challenge to the sale of a 2.5-acre plot, ruling that the land was her grandfather’s self-acquired property rather than ancestral family property, the Times of India reported.
The dispute arose after a man and his mother transferred the land to his second wife under a gift settlement deed in 1975. She sold it to a third party in 1996. The man’s daughter from his first marriage argued that the land was ancestral and that she was entitled to a share.
According to the Times of India, the land had initially belonged to the plaintiff’s grandfather. In a 1953 will, he gave his wife a lifetime interest but barred her from selling or transferring the property. The will said it should ultimately pass to their son. After the grandfather died in 1986, his widow and son transferred the land to the son’s second wife.
The court concluded that the will intended the land to pass to the son as his separate property. It also found that the grandmother’s lifetime interest was not given in lieu of maintenance and applied Section 14(2) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. That provision concerns property received under a will or gift subject to the terms specified in the instrument.
The court cited the Supreme Court’s 1953 judgment in C.N. Arunachala Mudaliar v. C.A. Muruganatha Mudaliar. As described in the report, the character of property depends on the testator’s intention: it may be transferred as an individual asset or preserved for a joint family and its heirs.
The Times of India reported that the court also considered the plaintiff’s acknowledgement that the 1975 deed had been executed and the absence of evidence that her father challenged it during his lifetime. The court left open the question of the second marriage’s legal validity while finding that the marriage itself had been established. It upheld the subsequent sale.