"No Justification For Only Male Heirs": Tribal Women's Big Supreme Court Win

Women in tribal communities, and their legal heirs, are entitled to an equal share in ancestral property and assets, the Supreme Court said Thursday afternoon in a landmark judgement for gender equality amongst some of the most marginalised sections of society.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said depriving women of ancestral inheritance was both unfair and discriminatory, and a violation of their right to equality, pointing to Article 14, which guarantees equality before the law, and Article 15, which disallows discrimination against any person on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.

Indeed, the court began its judgment by observing: "One would think that in this day and age, where great strides have been made in realising the constitutional goal of equality, this Court would not need to intervene for equality between the successors of a common ancestor, and the same should be a given, irrespective of their biological differences... but it is not so."

The court was hearing a plea by the children (and legal heirs) of Dhaiya and who sought an equal share in their maternal grandfather's property. That claim had been shot down by the family's male heirs, who pointed to the custom of excluding women from succession and inheritances.

Dhaiya moved the Supreme Court after two lower courts denied her plea. The top court struck down those rulings, pointing out they required Dhaiya to prove a custom allowing women to inherit rather than requiring the male heirs to prove that such exclusion is legally tenable.

The Supreme Court acknowledged Dhaiya had been unable to establish a custom of female succession, but said it was equally true that no custom to the contrary could be proved.

The court also acknowledged the Hindu Succession Act does not apply to Scheduled Tribes, but that could not mean tribal women should be "automatically deprived of their inheritance".

The judgement written by Justice Karol said that faced with such customs, i.e., denying women their inheritances, courts should exercise "justice, equity, and good conscience".

"In this case the parties could not establish the existence of any such practice which deprives women of inheritance. Even if there is such a practice, it will have to evolve. Like law, customs also cannot be bound by time. Others cannot be allowed to take refuge in customs or hide behind them to deprive others of their rights," Justice Karol said in a welcome judgment.

"There is no justification for allowing only male heirs to inherit," the judge said.

Therefore, presented with all these facts, the Supreme Court ruled in favour Dhaiya and female succession, noting that "otherwise denying a woman (or her heirs) rights in property only increases gender divide and discrimination, which the law must remedy".