Tribal women too are entitled to inherit an equal share of property along with their male counterparts or coparceners, as the Madras High Court has held and directed the State government to initiate steps for notifying that all Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the State would be governed by the provisions of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam pointed out that the notification under Section 2(2) of the Act could be issued only by the Centre. Hence, he directed the High Court Registry to send a copy of his judgment to the Chief Secretary so that the State government could prevail upon the Centre to issue the notification at the earliest.
The directions were issued while dismissing an Appeal Suit filed in 2018 for denying an equal share of property to two tribal women on the ground that Section 2(2) clearly states that no provision of the Act would apply to members of any ST unless the Centre, by notification in the official gazette, directs otherwise.
Not in agreement with the ground raised by the appellants, the male coparceners, to deny an equal share to the women, the judge said, the Hindu Succession Act applies not only to those who profess Hinduism but also to Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and any other person who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi, or Jew by religion.
Further, Section 2(1)(c) of the Act states that the application of the law to “any other person” could be exempted if it could be proved that such a person, by custom or usage, was entitled to follow a completely different procedure on issues related to succession and not be governed by the Hindu laws.
“Thus, the whole reading of Section 2 would cogently reveal that the statute never intended to exclude the tribal women from the application of the Act but contemplated enabling the tribal community to adopt their custom and practice in the absence of any notification by the Central Government,” the judge wrote.
He also stated that it was necessary for the parties seeking exemption from the Hindu Succession Act to prove that their custom was not opposed to public policy and that it was ancient, invariable, as well as continuous, besides not being expressly forbidden by the legislature and not opposed to morality or public policy.
“It is to be noted that the backwardness of the tribal population in the State of Tamil Nadu is not prevailing to such an extent so as to form an opinion that the customs of such a tribal community are to be adopted. There is no such custom and practice established in the present case, and therefore, the question of the application of custom and practice in the matter of inheritance would not arise at all,” the judge concluded.