Reversioners turned away: the personal law that governs a woman's holding is the law in force on the day she dies

Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria hold that “personal law” in Section 51(2) of the Delhi Land Reforms Act is a general reference, so Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act enlarged Khajano's life estate and her holding devolves under Section 53 — to her own sons, not to the heirs of the last male proprietor.

Khajano was widowed, lost her only son in 1937, and then remarried — by karwa, to a man from another branch of the same extended family. When the Delhi Land Reforms Act came into force in July 1954 she was in possession of some 45 bighas in Bhawana village and was declared a Bhumidhar. She died in 1973. Her two sons by the second marriage applied for mutation in 1997; the male lineal descendants of her first husband's family claimed the land should revert to them instead. On 9 October 2026, after twenty-nine years of proceedings, a Division Bench of Justice S.V.N. Bhatti and Justice N.V. Anjaria dismissed the reversioners' appeal and confirmed the mutation in favour of Khajano's sons. The judgment, authored by Justice Bhatti and marked reportable, turns on one question: when Section 51(2) asks what “the personal law applicable to her” gave a female Bhumidhar, does it mean the law as it stood when the Act commenced, or the law in force when she died?

A genealogy that starts with Hardayal

The subject matter is Khata No. 273/222, admeasuring approximately 45 bighas in Bhawana Village, Delhi, and the judgment sets out the family tree because the whole dispute is about which branch of it takes.

The earliest propositus is the late Hardayal, who had three sons — Khushi Ram, Tulsi Ram and Naval Kishore. Mauji Ram was the grandson of Naval Kishore. Mauji Ram married Khajano, and they had a son, Ram Chander. Mauji Ram died, leaving his wife and his son. In 1937 Ram Chander died, unmarried, leaving Khajano as the sole surviving representative of her husband's and her son's estate.

After those two deaths Khajano contracted karwa — remarriage — with Bal Kishan, who was a grandson of Tulsi Ram and a son of Khurdiya, and therefore from a different branch of Hardayal's line. Bal Kishan already had three sons by his first wife: Subbe, Hoshiyare and Muktiyare. From her second marriage Khajano had two more sons, Chand Ram and Chander Bhan, who are respondents 2 and 3 in this appeal.

So the land Khajano held had come to her from Mauji Ram and Ram Chander, and the children who eventually claimed it through her were fathered by a different man.

Declared a Bhumidhar in 1954, absolute owner in 1956, dead in 1973

Three dates do the work in this case, and the judgment is careful to keep them apart.

The Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954 came into operation in the Union Territory of Delhi with effect from 20 July 1954. Khajano, as Khudkhast in possession of the land, claimed Bhumidhar status under Section 5 and was declared a Bhumidhar under Section 11. Both sides accept that declaration; it is not in issue. At that moment, what she held under the Hindu Women's Right to Property Act, 1937 was a widow's limited estate — a life interest.

The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 came into force on 17 June 1956. Section 14(1) provides that any property possessed by a female Hindu, whether acquired before or after the commencement of the Act, “shall be held by her as full owner thereof and not as a limited owner”, and the Explanation defines property to include immovable property acquired by inheritance, devise, partition, gift, purchase, prescription “or in any other manner whatsoever”.

Khajano died in 1973.

Twenty-nine years over a mutation entry

In 1997 Chand Ram and Chander Bhan applied for mutation by succession, registered as Case No. 2031/SDM/97 before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Narela. The appellants, describing themselves as reversioners, sought a parallel mutation in favour of all the male lineal descendants of Mauji Ram's brothers. Notably, Bal Kishan's three sons by his first wife did not oppose the mutation in favour of their half-brothers; they filed supporting affidavits and consented to it.

On 25 April 1997 the SDM ordered mutation in favour of Khajano's two sons. The reversioners' appeal, No. 295/DC/NW/97, was dismissed by the Additional Collector (North/West), Khanjawala, on 31 July 2000, and their second appeal by the Financial Commissioner on 17 November 2000. All three authorities took the same view: that the limited life estate Khajano had inherited as the wife of Mauji Ram and mother of Ram Chander under the 1937 Act had, read with Section 14 of the 1956 Act, transformed into absolute ownership, so that her estate devolved under Section 53 and the reversioners' claim under pre-1956 Shastric law was excluded.

The reversioners then succeeded, once. On 9 December 2004 a learned Single Judge of the Delhi High Court allowed Writ Petition No. 1170 of 2001 and a batch of connected petitions and set aside the mutation. Relying on Ram Mehar v. Dakhan, 1973 RLR 279, the Single Judge held that succession to Bhumidhari rights in Delhi after 1954 is governed by the 1954 Act and not by the Hindu Succession Act; that the Act applies to persons of all religions and occupies the entire field of agricultural land tenancies in Delhi; and that the parties therefore could not rely on personal law at all. Drawing on this Court's construction of Section 172 of the U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1951 in Ram Jivan v. Smt Phoola, AIR 1976 SC 844, the Single Judge reasoned that where a widow inherited an interest from her husband or son it is the holding that devolves and not her personal interest, which terminates on her death, so that succession had to be traced to the nearest surviving heir of the last male holder under the Table in Section 50.

By judgment dated 9 August 2012 in LPA No. 92 of 2005, a Division Bench reversed the Single Judge. It distinguished Ram Jivan on the ground that the female tenant there had died in September 1952, before the Hindu Succession Act came into force, and that the statutes which had converted her limited status into a heritable tenancy were rent and tenancy enactments — the Oudh Rent Act, 1886 and the U.P. Tenancy Act, 1939 — which cannot be classified as personal law applicable to a female at all. It then applied Bajaya v. Gopikabai, (1978) 2 SCC 542, for the proposition that “personal law” means the law in force on the date of death. Khajano having died in 1973, her personal law was the Hindu Succession Act; Section 14 had converted her life interest into an absolute estate; she therefore held the holding absolutely within Section 51(2)(a)(ii), and devolution followed the Table in Section 53. The Division Bench added that the bar in Section 48(2) on a widow bequeathing her holding by will applies only to female Bhumidhars whose holdings devolve on reversioners under clause (a)(i), and that Section 15 of the Hindu Succession Act was inapplicable because it deals with property inherited from a father or mother, whereas Khajano inherited from her son.

That brought the reversioners to the Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No. 9146 of 2012.

Two clauses, and everything turns on which one applies

Section 51 of Chapter III, Part ‘E’ of the 1954 Act is headed “Succession in the case of a woman holding an interest inherited as a widow, mother, daughter etc.” Sub-section (2) deals with a Bhumidhar who inherited an interest in a holding as a widow, mother, step-mother, father's mother, daughter, sister or step-sister before the Act commenced. Where such a Bhumidhar dies and was on that date a proprietor of the land comprised in the holding, clause (a) splits into two:

Under clause (a)(i), if “she was in accordance with the personal law applicable to her entitled to a life estate only in the holding”, the holding devolves on the nearest surviving heir of the last male proprietor or tenant, that heir being ascertained under Section 50. Under clause (a)(ii), if “she was in accordance with the personal law applicable to her entitled to the holding absolutely”, the holding devolves in accordance with the Table in Section 53.

Clause (i) sends the land backwards, to the reversioners. Clause (ii) sends it forward, to her own heirs. Nothing else in the appeal mattered.

For the appellants, Senior Counsel Mr. Rupesh Kumar argued that the 1954 Act deals not only with the conferment of tenure rights but with their devolution; that Khajano succeeded as a limited owner to her son's estate because her husband had predeceased him; that her declaration as Bhumidhar under Sections 5 and 11 carried with it the nature of the right she held at the time of recognition; and that her rights were crystallised as on 20 July 1954. On a plain and literal construction, he submitted, clause (a)(i) is attracted, and the Hindu Succession Act two years later does not alter the position of a woman who had inherited as a widow or mother. He also argued that by reason of the remarriage she ceased to have any interest in the estate left by Mauji Ram and Ram Chander, and relied on Hatti v. Sunder Singh, (1970) 2 SCC 841, Ram Jivan, Bhagat Ram v. Taja Singh, (2002) 1 SCC 210, and others, while accepting that there is no direct judgment on the point.

For Khajano's sons, Senior Counsel Mr. Ramakrishnan Viraraghavan argued that they were not praying for mutation under the Hindu Succession Act at all, but claiming under Section 51(2)(a)(ii) of the 1954 Act itself; that clauses (i) and (ii) deal with distinct scenarios, and the personal law each refers to is the law applicable on the date of the female Bhumidhar's demise; that the objection to the second marriage was not timely and could not now be used to test the judgment under appeal, the appellants' own suit for partition having been dismissed for non-prosecution; and that the construction urged by the appellants was retrograde, when the law is progressive.

“In any other manner whatsoever”

The Court took Section 14(1) of the Hindu Succession Act first, and summarised the precedents on it as eight propositions. Devolution is not confined to survivorship or inheritance, the legislature being competent to confer a statutory third mode. Section 14(1) is an instrument of social amelioration, meant to eliminate gender-based discrimination and to remove the proprietary disabilities which had historically subjected Hindu women to perpetual tutelage. The words “as full owner thereof and not as limited owner” extinguish the traditional Hindu widow's estate and invest the female with absolute dominion and unfettered powers of disposition. The provision presupposes some prior legal right and converts limited ownership into full ownership, without creating a right where none existed. The choice of “possessed by” over “in possession of” takes in constructive and legal possession as well as physical. And under the Explanation the word “acquired” carries the widest possible amplitude.

The authorities run from Potti Lakshmi Perumallu, (1965) 1 SCR 26, and Eramma v. Veerupana, (1966) 2 SCR 626, through V. Tulasamma v. Sesha Reddy, (1977) 3 SCC 99, and Jagannathan Pillai, (1987) 2 SCC 572, to Kalawatibai v. Soiryabi, (1991) 3 SCC 410.

Then the Bench made the point that decided the case. Neither party had placed a decision on the scope of the words “or in any other manner whatsoever” in the Explanation. The expression, the Court held, means using any method, form or way without exception or limitation — a comprehensive term ensuring that no mode of acquisition is left out. An Explanation aids interpretation, fills a gap and supports the Act's dominant object, as S. Sundaram Pillai v. V.R. Pattabiraman, (1985) 1 SCC 591, holds. Read together, the expressions in the Explanation take within their fold the right of a Hindu widow or mother, and the transformation of a limited right into an absolute right by legislation is to be inferred.

Which is where the judgment's best line sits. “There is no possibility of mistaking midnight for noon; but at what precise moment twilight becomes darkness is hard to determine.” In this case, the Court said, with the advent of Section 14(1) there is no possibility of mistaking midnight for noon, and it is not difficult to determine the precise moment when twilight turns to dawn. The declaratory nature of the 1954 Act and the enlargement worked by the 1956 Act together make a Hindu widow a full owner.

Specific reference, general reference

The bridge between the two statutes is the doctrine of referential incorporation, and the Bench took it from the three-Judge decision in Bajaya, a case under the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code whose Section 151 made a tenure-holder's interest pass on death “subject to his personal law”.

Legislation by referential incorporation falls into two categories. Where a statute by specific reference incorporates the provisions of another statute as of the time of adoption, subsequent amendments to the referred statute cannot automatically be read into the adopting statute. Where a statute incorporates by general reference the law concerning a subject, as a genus, the legislative intent is presumed to include all subsequent amendments made from time to time. Bajaya held that “subject to his personal law” in Section 151 was a general referential incorporation, so that it took in the Hindu Succession Act, and that the words “on his death” indicated that the relevant personal law is the law in force when succession opens.

Section 51(2) of the Delhi Act likewise uses the expression “personal law”, a general referential term. “Legislation looks to the future, not to the past. It is progressive, not retrogressive.” The Court then put the counterfactual that makes the holding precise: had Khajano died between 20 July 1954 and 17 June 1956, succession would have been regulated by clause (a)(i), because on that day she held a proprietary right but with a limited estate. By operation of Section 14(1) read with the Explanation, from 17 June 1956 she became not only a proprietor but, through the general referential legislation of personal law, the holder of an absolute right — which changed the course of succession from Section 50 to Section 53.

“Dies”, not “died”

Having reached that conclusion through the referential doctrine, the Bench tested it again on the bare words, and the test is grammatical.

The judgment restates the literal rule: plain and ordinary meaning is the core principle, judicial creativity is not permitted, judges cannot add, subtract or modify words nor presume omissions, and grammar matters because syntax dictates how a word functions. Other rules — the mischief rule, purposive construction — are available only where the plain words are ambiguous, yield no intelligible result, or would nullify the object of the statute, on the authority of B. Premanand v. Mohan Koikal, (2011) 4 SCC 266. Gurudevdatta VKSSS Maryadit v. State of Maharashtra, (2001) 4 SCC 534, adds the direction that every word the legislature used be given meaning rather than brushed aside as inapposite surplus.

Applied to Section 51(2), the tenses are not uniform, and the Court held that the difference is deliberate. The words “who has before the commencement of this Act, inherited an interest” are in the simple past: that limb fixes the manner and mode in which a Hindu woman acquired her interest as on 20 July 1954. Clause (a) then begins with “dies and such Bhumidhar was on the date a proprietor of the land comprised in the holding” — the simple present. The present tense in clause (a), and therefore in sub-clauses (i) and (ii) which hang from it, is the tense of the date on which the trigger point occurs.

Khajano died in 1973, and on that date she was a proprietor of all the land comprised in the holding. A literal reading aligns the tense with the trigger point. If “dies” were read as “died” merely in order to give the clause a restricted meaning, that would disregard the plain language the legislature used. The deciding factors, the Court concluded, are the timing of death and the nature of the right held at the time of death under the personal law that would govern succession. The personal law is not frozen on the enactment of the 1954 Act.

Order

On the authorities pressed by the appellants, the Bench recorded that they are not on point and are distinguishable on both facts and law, and that none is directly on the question; it did not set out the distinguishing features case by case, noting only that the issue falls within Section 51(2)(a)(ii) and its interplay with Section 14. The Division Bench had correctly captured the ratio of Bajaya and had rightly reversed the Single Judge, and the Supreme Court recorded its reasons independently while agreeing with that judgment.

There was no reason to interfere. The civil appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs, and pending applications stood disposed of. The mutation entered in favour of Chand Ram and Chander Bhan on 25 April 1997 stands — which means that 45 bighas in Bhawana, inherited by a woman from the husband and son she lost in the 1930s, pass to the two sons she had after she remarried, and not back up the male line of the family she married into first.