Hindu Succession Act 1956 Section 6: Devolution of Coparcenary Property (2026)

Explainer · Succession Law · Hindu Succession Act

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 decides how a person's share in ancestral, or coparcenary, property passes on. Since the 2005 amendment, a daughter is a coparcener in her own right by birth, in the same way as a son, with the same rights and the same liabilities. This means a daughter can ask for a partition and claim her share of ancestral property, just like a son. The Supreme Court in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020) settled that this right comes by birth, so the father does not need to have been alive on the day the amendment started. This explainer sets out what Section 6 says, what the 2005 amendment changed, and what the leading case decided. Last verified October 2026.

01What coparcenary property means

In a Hindu joint family governed by the Mitakshara school, there is a special kind of property called coparcenary property. A coparcener is a family member who gets a share in this property by birth. The group of coparceners together own the ancestral property, and each coparcener's share goes up or down as members are born or die.

Section 6 deals with what happens to a coparcener's interest in this property. The old idea was that the interest passed by survivorship, meaning it went to the surviving coparceners, and daughters were left out of the coparcenary. The 2005 amendment changed this.

02What Section 6 says now

After the 2005 amendment, the substituted Section 6 provides, in plain words:

• the daughter of a coparcener becomes, by birth, a coparcener in her own right, in the same manner as a son;
• the daughter has the same rights in the coparcenary property as a son would have, and the same liabilities;
• when a coparcener dies, the interest devolves by testamentary or intestate succession under the Act, and not by survivorship;
• a daughter can seek partition of the coparcenary property and ask for her share.

So a daughter is now treated as a full member of the coparcenary, with the right to demand a partition and to hold, deal with and pass on her share.

03What the 2005 amendment changed

Before 9 September 2005, daughters were not coparceners under the general law. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 replaced the old Section 6 with effect from that date and put sons and daughters on an equal footing in coparcenary property.

The change was meant to remove an old gender difference and give daughters the same place in the ancestral property as sons.

04Vineeta Sharma: the leading case

For some years courts disagreed on one question: did the father have to be alive on 9 September 2005 for the daughter to claim? Two Supreme Court benches gave conflicting answers, in Prakash v. Phulavati and Danamma v. Amar.

A three judge bench settled it in Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020). The key holdings, in simple terms, are:

• the daughter's right is by birth, so the father need not have been alive on 9 September 2005;
• the right applies to daughters living on that date, whether born before or after it;
• the court overruled the view in Phulavati that required the father to be alive.

This is now the controlling authority on amended Section 6.

05Limits and saved partitions

The right is wide but not unlimited. The main carve outs are:

• a partition that was already completed by a registered partition deed, or by a court decree, before 20 December 2004 is protected and is not reopened;
• the court in Vineeta Sharma treated only genuine, actual partitions as a bar, so a merely notional or statutory partition on paper does not defeat a daughter's claim.

Some questions, such as the position of buyers who bought ancestral property before 2005, are still worked out case by case.

06Section 6 and related remedies

Section 6 often comes up alongside other succession and property steps. The common ones are:

• Partition: to actually claim a share, a coparcener files a partition suit. See how to file a partition suit for ancestral property and a partition notice and family settlement.
• Intestate succession: where there is no will, shares are worked out under the Act. See intestate succession among Hindus.
• Succession certificate: to collect debts and movable assets of a person who died, heirs may need a succession certificate.

A draft partition plaint can help you see what such a case looks like; see a partition suit plaint format.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

Coparcenary disputes turn heavily on case law, from Vineeta Sharma down to how a particular High Court treats a claimed past partition. Claw lets you search more than 30 crore judgments on Section 6 and daughters' coparcenary rights, by party or advocate, with results in under 5 seconds, so you can line up the authorities that fit your facts. Reported authority runs from Supreme Court rulings of 1950 and High Court rulings of 1990 to the latest orders. A partition matter also runs for years, so Claw lets you track the case, its orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums by party name.

Claw does not use the documents you upload to train its AI models. Create a free Claw account to find coparcenary and partition judgments close to your facts and to follow a pending suit, and use case search across Indian courts to search the wider body of succession law.

08Sources and further reading

• India Code (Hindu Succession Act, 1956, bare text): indiacode.nic.in
• Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (Supreme Court judgment): digiscr.sci.gov.in
• Analysis of Vineeta Sharma (Bar and Bench): barandbench.com
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This explainer is general information, not legal advice. Succession law turns on the facts and on current case law, so check the statute and take advice from counsel before you act.

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