Ancestral property

The Hindu Succession Act, 1956, originally did not give daughters inheritance rights in ancestral property. They could only ask for a right to sustenance from a joint Hindu family. But this disparity was removed by an amendment to the Act on September 9, 2005.

“All that is required is that the daughter should be alive and her father should also be alive on the date of the amendment,” it said.
The court also held that alienation of ancestral property, including its partition, which may have taken place before December 20, 2004, in accordance with the law applicable at that time, would remain unaffected by the 2005 amendment, and those partitions can no longer be reopened by daughters.