Key Highlights
- Muralidhara Pai made observations in this regard while adjudicating an appeal filed by Sharanavva of Hirekoppa of Ron taluk in Gadag district challenging a decree passed by a civil court on the dispute between her and the other family members on the rights over the properties that belonged to her deceased husband.
- “The unamended Section 6, more particularly the first proviso, by reference to Class-1 heirs of the Schedule, ensured a share at a notional partition to a widow and mother of the deceased along with son; daughter, etc.
- However, the amended Section 6 does not contain reference to Class-1 heirs of the Schedule,” the Bench pointed out.
- Stating that though “a plain reading of the amended provisions of the Section 6 does not contain a reference to Class-1 heirs mentioned in the Schedule like widows and mother”, the Bench said that there could be no manner of doubt, as explained in the 2020 judgment of the apex court in the case of Vineeta Sharma Vs.
- Rakesh Sharma and others, that “the law makers did not contemplate or intend to take away the rights of a Hindu widow or mother of the deceased, as was provided in the unamended provisions of Section 6.” “It is by sheer inadvertence, that the other Class-1 heirs such as widow, mother, widow of predeceased son; etc., who find place in Class-1 of the Schedule and their rights flowing in terms of the unamended Section 6 have been missed out in the amended provision,” the Bench pointed out.
