Hindu Widow's Property Rights Strengthened: High Court Ruling

In a significant ruling that reinforces the property rights of Hindu women, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has held that any property received by a Hindu widow, either in partition or in lieu of maintenance, becomes her absolute property, and not a limited estate.

Justice Rohit W Joshi, delivering the judgment, emphasized that a Hindu woman’s right to maintenance is not “an empty formality or an illusory claim being conceded as a matter of grace and generosity, but a tangible right against property.”

The ruling came in connection with a decades-old property dispute involving the Bhamburkar family of Nagpur. According to case details, one Balaji Bhamburkar purchased properties in 1928 and built a house in 1931. After his death in 1932, his estate was divided among his three sons, Harihar, Keshao, and Krushna, and his widow, Laxmibai, through a deed executed on October 26, 1953. Under this deed, the disputed house was allotted to Laxmibai.

Laxmibai passed away in December 1979 after gifting the house to her grandson, Vinay Harihar Bhamburkar, through a registered deed. However, nearly a decade later, in 1988, other descendants, Bhavana, Prashant, and Pradnya Bhamburkar, filed a civil suit claiming that Laxmibai had only a “life interest” in the property and therefore had no right to gift it.

Both the trial court (April 2018) and the appellate court (June 2022) dismissed their claims, upholding the validity of the gift deed. The family then moved the High Court in 2022, challenging the lower court orders. Appearing for the appellants, advocate SP Kshirsagar argued that the 1953 document was a “family settlement” rather than a registered partition deed and that it merely granted Laxmibai a limited, life-time interest in the property.

In response, advocate N A Jachak, representing the respondents, submitted that as Balaji’s widow, Laxmibai had a pre-existing right of maintenance in her husband’s estate. Therefore, under section 14(1) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the property became her absolute ownership. The court concurred with this view, observing that “any property possessed by a Hindu woman shall be held by her as a full owner and not as a limited owner.”

The court added that a wife’s right to maintenance extends not only against her husband but also against his separate and ancestral properties, and continues even after his death. Citing Supreme Court precedents, Justice Joshi held that any property granted to a Hindu woman towards maintenance or received in partition becomes her absolute property, regardless of any restrictive conditions mentioned in the document.

Dismissing the appeal on October 6, the court concluded that Laxmibai was the absolute owner of the house allotted to her in the 1953 partition and had full legal authority to gift it to her grandson.