1. This act was made to amend the laws relating to the succession of property and assets among Hindus when someone dies without making a will.
2. This Act applies to the citizens of India belonging to the religion of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, or Sikh.
3. Section 6 was amended during the 2005 Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act and includes:
1. In a joint Hindu family, a daughter has equal rights the same as the son of the family.
2. Daughter will be allotted the same share of the property as the son.
3. The succession of property should be done based on the will or intestate succession and not by survivorship.
4. The share of any deceased member of the family should be allotted to his surviving child or grandchild.
5. Any successor inheriting assets of his predecessor will not inherit the debt amount exceeding the value of the assets.
4. Section 8 specifies the following general rules of intestate succession in the cases of males;
1. The assets of the deceased should be succeeded equally by class I heirs, which includes the deceased mother, wife, children, and grandchildren.
2. If no one mentioned above is present, then the assets are succeeded by class II heirs.
3. If both classes of heirs are not present, then the assets are succeeded by agnates or the relatives who are male.
4. If there is are no agnates then the assets are succeeded by cognates or the relatives who are female.
5. Properties should always be distributed equally among the class I heirs and to the exclusion of all other heirs. The deceased widow, mother, surviving sons, and daughters will each take one share. in the cases where over one widow is present, they will altogether take one share. In the cases of grandchildren, all the grandchildren belonging to a single child of the deceased will take one share altogether.
6. Hindu Succession Act prefers Agnates over cognates during property succession. This means relatives from the paternal side will always be preferred over relatives from the maternal side.
7. Any property held by a female Hindu is her absolute property and his property only.
8. The following are general rules of succession with female Hindus;
1. If the property is not inherited by the female Hindu then it is succeeded in the following order: children, husband, parents, heirs of the father and finally heirs of the mother.
2. If the property is inherited from her father or mother then after her children the preference is given to the paternal side and the family of the husband is excluded from the share.
3. If the property is inherited from her husband or father-in-law then after her children the preference is given to the husband's side and her paternal side is excluded from the share.
9. A child in the womb during the death of the intestate has the same right to inherit the assets of the deceased as a child alive during the death of the intestate.
10. Section 25 disqualifies a murderer to inherit any share from the property of the deceased.
11. Section 26 disqualifies any successor and his children to get a share from the property of the deceased if he leaves the Hindu religion or converts into another religion.
12. Any kind of disease or physical disability does not disqualify an heir to get a share of the property.
13. If a person has no heirs to the property, then both his assets and debts will be succeeded by the government.
This article is written for educational purposes, this is not for any kind of advertisement of the writer.