Hindu women’s property rights: Still long way to go

Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed, Advocate of Bangladesh Supreme Court ।।

The Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act 1937 deprives Hindu women of the right to inherit their husbands’ properties. However, Bangladesh High Court passed a landmark judgement on September 2. The judgement pronounced by the single judge bench of Justice Miftah Uddin Choudhury said that Hindu widows are entitled to share in all properties of their deceased husband. This means they will now have rights to both agricultural and non-agricultural lands. The HC also observed that they will have the right to sell the land for legal necessities during their lifetime.

One Jyotindra Nath Mandal of Khulna filed a case in the year 1996 seeking a court order to deprive his dead brother’s wife (sister-in-law) of their father’s assets. The lower court said that widows had rights only to the area of the houses in which they lived, and not to agricultural property.

Thereafter, on March 7, 2004, the Khulana’s joint district judge had ruled in the case filed by Mondal saying that Gouri Dasi, the widow of Mondal’s elder brother will get the rights to the agricultural land of the late husband. The land then had been recorded in the name of Gouri after her husband died in 1996.

After that Mondal filed another case challenging the record that gave the rights of agricultural land to the widow in 1996 with the court of an assistant judge in Khulna.

Later a civil revision petition was filed by this Mondal from Khulna district challenging the lower court verdict.

Finally on September 2, Bangladesh High Court ruled in favor of Hindu widows and changed the current norm and this verdict confirms the lower court’s verdict that was pronounced in 2004 which had ruled that a widow has rights to all the properties of her husband.

According to classical Hindu law, all daughters of a man are not equally eligible to inherit. Unmarried daughters and married daughters with sons can inherit, while childless widowed daughters or daughters having no son or with no possibility of having sons are excluded.

A Hindu woman, even if she inherits, has limited rights to her property in the form of life interest (i.e. on her death, the property reverts back to the next heir of the person she had inherited the property from). Widows inheriting properties from their husband also inherit on limited rights (i.e. life interest).

The law permits Hindu women in Bangladesh to remarry after their husbands’ death with a condition that when that widow contracts a new marriage, she ceases her claim over her deceased husband’s property (Hindu Widows ‘Remarriage Act, 1856, Section 2).

India has brought significant changes in the Hindu personal law in pursuance of a number of laws enacted in the 1950s. In accordance with the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the property of a male Hindu devolves in equal shares between son, daughter, widow and mother. This implies that this piece of legislation has dispelled the hitherto existing inequality and that the male and female heirs are now treated equally without any distinction in India. The Succession Act 1956 abolished the limited estate for female heirs & they now have the right to deal freely with and dispose of in any manner any kinds of property inherited by them.

Bangladesh is one of the 160 countries that ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all kinds of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which aims to eradicate all sorts of discrimination against women all over the world. The Constitution has also enshrined principles of non-discrimination on the ground of religion, sex, race, caste etc among the citizens of Bangladesh under Articles 27, 28 and 29.

And after all these years, Bangladeshi Hindu widows now have the rights to agricultural and non-agricultural lands of their deceased husbands. The recent verdict also entitles Hindu widows to have the right to sell in case of legal necessities later in life.

Obviously, it’s a great achievement but we should not forget that we still have to go a long way.

To ensure that all women, irrespective of their religion; are enjoying all the Constitutional rights, we have to keep on fighting until we reach our goal.

 

(The views and opinions expressed by the writers are those of their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Feminist Factor)