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December 22, 2003 

Indian SC's rule

Father can gift ancestral property to daughters

In a major judgement, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled that a father can gift a reasonable portion of his ancestral immovable property to daughters at the time of their marriage or even long after their marriage.

This ruling was given by a bench comprising Justice RC Lahoti and Justice Ashok Bhan while settling a 15-year-old dispute between a father and his daughters in Salem district of Tamil Nadu in favour of the latter by setting aside a trial court order which was upheld by the Madras High Court.

Considering several rulings of the apex court, the bench said "it can safely be held that a father can make a gift of ancestral immovable property within reasonable limits, keeping in view the total extent of the property held by the family in favour of his daughter at the time of marriage or even long after her marriage".

The father, Raja Gounder, had gifted some portion of his ancestral land to his daughters in 1985 but five years later alleged that the daughters, taking advantage of his addiction to alcohol, had fraudulently taken away the ancestral property which he could not have gifted.

The trial court and the high court had ruled in favour of the father saying he had no right to gift away ancestral property except for pious purposes.

The bench said the question as to whether a particular gift was within reasonable limits or not has to be judged according to the status of the family at the time of making a gift, the extent of immovable property owned by the family and the extent of property gifts.

"No hard and fast rule prescribing quantitative limits of such a gift can be laid down. The answer to such a question would vary from family to family," Justice Bhan said.

Taking the case in hand, the bench said the father had failed to plead the total extent of the ancestral immovable property of the family and prove that the gift was unreasonable taking the total extent of property into account.

Apart from this, the question of reasonableness or otherwise of the gift made has to be assessed vis-à-vis the total value of the property held by the family.

"Simply because the gifted property is a house, it cannot be held that the gift made was not within the reasonable limits," the apex court said.

The court said, "It would depend on number of factors such as the status of the family, total value of the property held by the family and the value of the gifted property and so on".

However, on facts, if it was found that the gift was not within reasonable limits, such a gift would not be upheld, the Supreme Court said and added it was for those challenging the gift to prove that the gift made by the father was excessive or unreasonable, keeping in view, the total holding of the family.

Source: PTI, New Delhi.