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Case file s767 · India and South Asia · 1999
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1999
Map of India, marked on the globe
Map of India. Ssolbergj (talk). CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
11 December 1999 (Dev Dutt Sharma)
Place
Delhi, India
Field
Hindu joint family property · Land and agriculture on the timeline
Legal tradition
Hindu law (Mitakshara coparcenary); Hindu Succession Act 1956 as amended in 2005 · Hindu law
Historical event
Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, in force 9 September 2005
India and South AsiaDied without a willBrothers and sisters in courtPostwarSouth AsiaIndia

Vineeta Sharma's father died in 1999 and the Delhi courts said she was too late to share the family property; the Supreme Court made every Hindu daughter a co-owner by birth

Under the Mitakshara school of Hindu law, sons own a share of ancestral property from birth as coparceners. Daughters did not. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005, in force from 9 September 2005, made daughters coparceners in the same way as sons. Dev Dutt Sharma of Delhi died without a will on 11 December 1999. His daughter Vineeta sued her brothers Rakesh and Satyendra and their mother for a one-fourth share. The Delhi High Court held that the 2005 law did not help her because her father had died before it came into force, following the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling in Prakash v. Phulavati. On 11 August 2020 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, Justices Arun Mishra, Abdul Nazeer and M.R. Shah, ruled for her. A daughter is a coparcener by birth, born before or after 2005; the father need not have been alive on 9 September 2005; oral partitions claimed to defeat her share are rejected unless backed by public documents. It overruled Phulavati and asked courts to decide pending cases within six months. Her own appeal came back to the Supreme Court and on 5 September 2023 was sent to the Delhi High Court to modify the 2018 decree in line with the ruling.

What the law took from it

A Hindu family that holds property as a joint family now has daughters as co-owners from birth, whatever the date of the father's death.

Sources
  1. api.sci.gov.inGovernment record
  2. conventuslaw.comPress
  3. thelegalquorum.comPress
  4. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Vineeta Sharma's father died in 1999 and the Delhi courts said she was too late to share the family property; the Supreme Court made every Hindu daughter a co-owner by birth,” story s767, https://www.celebrity.estate/vineeta-sharma-1999, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

India and South AsiaDied without a willBrothers and sisters in courtPostwarSouth AsiaHindu lawIndia