Born four weeks before the decree, a minor cannot claim half the Chennai plot his father sold
Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Augustine George Masih hold that property a father takes in a partition among Class I heirs is his alone, and his son has no birthright in it, and the Tamil Nadu amendment does not rescue the claim on these facts.
The Supreme Court on 6 November 2026 dismissed the appeal of a minor who was born on 6 January 1994 and sued, through his mother, for half of a 1,811 sq ft plot in Chennai. His father got the plot in a family partition on 3 February 1994, four weeks after the boy was born, and sold it in 1997.
The Court held that the plot became the father’s exclusive property when it passed to him under Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The son acquired no coparcenary right in it by birth, and the sales stand.
A bench of Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice Sunita Agarwal heard Civil Appeal No. 7020 of 2012. The judgment, written by Justice Agarwal, is marked reportable. It also holds that Section 6 of the 1956 Act and the Tamil Nadu amendment of 1989 do not help the boy.
A plot, a decree and two sale deeds
The suit property belonged to N. Ramakrishnan, the boy’s grandfather. His daughter, G. Lalitha, filed C.S. No. 1728 of 1993 for partition of his property. It ended in a compromise decree dated 3 February 1994, under which the boy’s father, the first defendant, got his share: the 1,811 sq ft plot.
The father then sold it by two deeds, dated 3 April 1997 and 17 April 1997, to the second and third defendants. The boy’s suit, Original Suit No. 1698 of 1997, followed that year. His mother, J. Gomathi, filed it as his natural guardian.
The plaint called the plot joint family property and said the father was about to alienate it to defeat the boy’s right. It sought only partition and possession of half. It did not challenge the compromise decree or the two sale deeds.
Trial court for the boy, appeal against him
The purchasers contested the suit. They said the father was absolute owner under the compromise decree, and that they had paid the price and taken possession. The II Additional Judge of the City Civil Court, Chennai passed a preliminary decree of partition.
The purchasers appealed. The first appellate court set the decree aside. It held that a son who takes property from a father who dies intestate takes it as absolute owner, and that his own son has no right in it by birth.
It reasoned that where property devolved on divided sons and daughters, each took a share and could sell it, and that Section 6 was not attracted because a partition had taken place. The judgment under challenge in the Supreme Court is the High Court’s of 11 August 2010.
The father stayed ex parte at every stage until his death in 2024, the appellant’s counsel told the bench.
The boy’s case: coparcener from birth
Mr. K. Paari Vendhan, for the appellant, relied on Section 29-A of the Hindu Succession (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 1989. It makes a daughter of a coparcener a coparcener in her own right by birth, in the same manner as a son, notwithstanding Section 6. He argued that this left a son’s existing right by birth intact.
The boy was born on 6 January 1994, he said, and became a coparcener in his grandfather’s ancestral property at birth. The partition suit was filed in 1993, but the decree came only on 3 February 1994, after his birth, and he was never made a party.
Counsel argued that the compromise decree did not turn the father’s share into self-acquired property, because clause (iii) of Section 29-A kept the incidents of coparcenary ownership. He cited Rohit Chauhan v. Surinder Singh and Arshnoor Singh v. Harpal Kaur.
The purchasers could acquire no better right than the father, he said, and the father had not shown legal necessity for selling coparcenary property. The trial court’s finding that the property was ancestral had not been controverted by the father.
Purchasers: a grandson is no Class I heir
Mr. K.K. Mani, for the respondents, said this was a grandson claiming succession to his grandfather’s property, which Section 8 governs. A son’s son does not appear among the Class I heirs in the Schedule, so he gets no right in his grandfather’s property.
He said the plot was no longer ancestral after the partition, and the father was alive when the suit was filed. He called the purchasers innocent and the suit collusive with a father who never turned up. He relied on C.W.T. v. Chander Sen, Vimalben Ajitbhai Patel v. Vatslabeen Ashokbhai Patel and Radha Bai v. Ram Narayan.
The question the bench framed
Justice Agarwal opened the judgment with a short statement of the issue, as the Court saw it:
“whether the appellant would be entitled to half share in the property of his father who is still alive and can seek a decree of partition on the premise of the property in question being ancestral/joint family property.” (para 1)
The bench then extracted Sections 6 and 8 of the 1956 Act as they stood before the 2005 amendment, and Section 29-A of the Tamil Nadu Act.
Section 6, in its old form, says that when a male Hindu dies holding an interest in a Mitakshara coparcenary, that interest passes by survivorship to the surviving coparceners. A proviso sends it by succession instead when he leaves a Class I female relative.
Section 8 sends the property of a male Hindu who dies intestate first to the Class I heirs in the Schedule. Section 29-A, inserted in Tamil Nadu in 1989, makes a coparcener’s daughter a coparcener by birth. It does not apply to partitions effected before 1989 or to daughters married before that date.
How Chander Sen shaped the answer
The bench set out Commissioner of Wealth Tax v. Chander Sen at length. Under old Hindu law a son gets a share in his father’s property the moment he is born, and it becomes part of the joint family of son and grandson. But Section 8 of the 1956 Act changed that position.
Class I of the Schedule names the son but not the son’s son, while it does include the son of a predeceased son. Holding that property inherited under Section 8 is joint family property in the son’s hands would, Chander Sen said, create two classes among Class I heirs.
The bench noted that Yudhisthir v. Ashok Kumar and CIT v. M. Karthikeyan reiterated the principle. In Bhanwar Singh v. Puran, where a son and three daughters had partitioned the property, the property ceased to be joint family property, and each took a share as tenant in common under Section 19.
It then went through Radha Bai v. Ram Narayan in detail. There too a coparcenary claim by a descendant failed, because the property that fell to one heir on partition was held in his individual capacity and he was free to sell it.
The passage it reproduced from Radha Bai also dealt with Gurupad Khandappa Magdum, Raj Rani and Ramesh Verma. Those were disputes among Class I heirs, and in Ramesh Verma the share had already become separate property on partition.
The judgment does not discuss Rohit Chauhan and Arshnoor Singh separately.
Applying Section 8 to Ramakrishnan’s plot
On the facts, the bench found that Ramakrishnan’s heirs inherited as Class I heirs under Section 8. A son’s son is not named there. The right a grandson had in his grandfather’s property during his father’s lifetime under pre-1956 personal law was not saved expressly when Parliament codified succession.
The property therefore did not become the joint family property of a son and his own branch. The surviving sons and daughters each took one share. The partition suit filed in 1993 and the compromise of 3 February 1994 then made each heir exclusive owner of the share that fell to him or her.
With the partition, the Court held, the property ceased to be joint family property, because the heirs took as tenants in common and
“joint coparcenary did not continue” (para 35)
The grandfather’s date of death was not disclosed. But since the partition suit was filed in 1993, the bench said, succession had evidently opened before the boy was born, and there was “no question of devolution of interest in the suit property” upon him (para 36).
Section 6 and Section 29-A do not apply
The boy had argued he became a coparcener by birth. The bench answered with the unamended Section 6. Before 2005 it provided that a male Hindu’s interest in a Mitakshara coparcenary passed by survivorship to the surviving coparceners at his death.
The grandfather’s date of death was not shown, and the partition among Class I heirs was sought in 1993. On that footing, Section 6 and Section 29-A of the Tamil Nadu Act had no application, and the boy was not a surviving coparcener when his grandfather died.
The bench also noted the timing of the challenge. The shares were divided and sold, the decree and the sale deeds were never challenged, and the suit came in 1997 while the father was alive, on the footing of a coparcenary right by birth.
Order
The Supreme Court found no infirmity in the High Court’s judgment. It held that the plot, once partitioned, became the father’s exclusive individual property and was not coparcenary property, so no coparcenary right passed to the appellant by birth.
The appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs, and pending applications were disposed of. The appellant was represented by Mr. K. Paari Vendhan and the respondents by Mr. K.K. Mani.