Supreme Court rejects grandson’s claim to father’s property

The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a grandson’s appeal seeking a half share in property allotted to his father after the partition of his grandfather’s estate, ruling that the father owned his share individually and the grandson had no right to it by birth.

The case concerned a 1,811-square-foot property in Chennai that belonged to N Ramakrishnan. After Ramakrishnan died, his son and daughter divided the estate through a compromise decree in a partition suit brought by the daughter. The decree was finalised in 1994, allotting each heir an individual share. The father later sold the disputed property.

The grandson, who was a minor when the dispute began, sought partition and possession of half the property, arguing that it remained ancestral or joint family property. The Supreme Court, in a judgment by a bench of Justices Augustine George Masih and Sunita Agarwal, upheld the Madras High Court’s decision rejecting that claim. The case had also gone through a trial court, which granted a preliminary partition decree before appellate courts set it aside.

The Court’s ruling turned on Section 8 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, which governs succession when a Hindu male dies...