Illegitimate children entitled to ancestral properties: SC

New Delhi : Noting that children should not suffer the stigma caused by their parents’ choices, the Supreme Court has held that illegitimate children born out of legally void marriages are entitled to their parents’ properties, whether self-acquired or ancestral.

The judgment by a Bench of Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly sets aside the apex court’s consistent stand in the past that illegitimate children are entitled only to the self-acquired properties of their parents, and not ancestral assets.

Focusing on the “individual dignity” of a child born outside a legal marriage, the Bench set forth to correct its past view by observing that this “Court has to remember that relationship between the parents may not be sanctioned by law, but the birth of a child in such relationship has to be viewed independently of the relationship of the parents”.

“A child born in such relationship is innocent and is entitled to all the rights which are given to other children born in valid marriage,” the judgment authored by Justice Ganguly observed.

Recommending that a Constitution Bench be set up to decide the right to property of illegitimate children, the Bench on March 31, 2011 referred the question to the Chief Justice of India for further directions by a larger Bench.

The court was interpreting Section 16 (3) of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, which prohibits illegitimate children any rights over the “property” of anyone, except their parents.

Noting that the provision requires a “purposive” interpretation that furthers rather than frustrates the “eminently desirable social purpose of removing the stigma on such children”, Justice Ganguly wrote that the Section 16 (3) simply means that “illegitimate children will have a right to whatever becomes the property of their parents whether self acquired or ancestral”.

“With changing social norms of legitimacy in every society, including ours, what was illegitimate in the past may be legitimate today,” the court said.

Terming that the word “property” in Section 16 does not specifically mention self-acquired or ancestral assets, the judgment observed that the provision’s “obvious purpose” is to “remove the stigma of illegitimacy on children born in void or voidable marriage”.

The court was deciding a case filed by the second wife and her children of a man for a quarter share of his ancestral property in Tamil Nadu.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/illegitimate-children-entitled-to-ancestral-properties-sc/772250/