Class I Heirs | Hindu Family Law | Hindu Succession in Tamil - YouTube

This Act explains how a Hindu person's property should devolve if he has died intestate i.e. if he had

not made any testament of how his property should devolve or who would succeed his property.

Now, a male Hindu, holding lots of properties, dies

without making any testament of how his property should devolve, i.e., died intestate.

Now, how can the properties be shared among his legal heirs?

First, Class I heirs.

There is a list of persons in class I heirs who will succeed his property on his death.

But, there is an order here for devolution.

If a male Hindu has died, his property will be succeed first by the Class I heirs.

If there is no Class I heirs then the property will go to Class II heirs.

Only if there are no Class I heirs, then the property would go to Class II heirs.

Again, what if there are no Class II heirs?

His property will go to his Agantes.

If this person has no Agnates, then Cognates get the property.

If there are no cognates too?

His property will be escheated.

Which means, since there are no persons to succeed his property, the government takes his property.

Who are his heirs?

How would they get his property?

In what order they get the property?

All these are explained from Sec 8 to Sec 10.

There is a Schedule to this Act, which mentions who are all the Class I heirs.

It also mentions who are all the Class II heirs, who would succeed his property if there are no Class I heirs.

Both the Classes are found in Schedule.

Now lets see who are all the heirs?

This Act came to force in 1956.

Before that, only male persons hold property, so only males would be shown as heirs.

Like, father's son, then his son's son, his son's son's son etc....

This position changed a bit with the enactment and enforcement of this Act.

Women had property rights, but only to a limited extent.

1956 Act, enumerates certain persons as heirs.

Then, came the 2005 amendment.

In this video, I will explain who are all the heirs, right now, ie., heirs, as enumerated after the amendment.

So, I am going to explain who are all the heirs as included by the 2005 amendment.

Let's see who are all the heirs.

This is a male person who had died intestate.

Since he is dead let's put him in a box (for understanding purposes)

These are his heirs.

Mother.

Wife.

In the Act, she will not be mentioned as "wife" but "widow".

In the act, she would be called widow, not wife, because her husband had died (whose property she is succeeding).

Which I think, is highly offensive.

I mean, what's the big deal in just representing his wife as "wife" instead of "widow"?

If the husband is dead, his wife is called a widow.

If the wife is dead, then how will her husband be called?

If you know, pause the video right now and comment below.

How would a husband be called, if his wife is dead?

I will wait here.

(waiting)

You found out?

If you already knew the name, then well and good.

But if you don't, let me tell you now.

If the wife is dead, her husband should be called a widower.

We have never used this word, had we?

No one has ever used this word on a man if his wife is dead.

We know the Tamil word for widower, right?

How is widower called in Tamil?

I don't know yet what is the tamil word for widower.

The reason why I am saying this is because, we see wife as a hier to succed her husband's property.

Similarly, we will see her husband as a successor to the wife's property, if she had died intestate.

In that place, her husband should not be mentioned as "husband" but widower, right? Just how the wife was mentioned as a widow?

But in this Act, you will see that the word 'husband' was used as an heir who would succeed his wife's property.

Instead of calling her husband as 'widower', he would be just called 'husband'.

It's unfair, isn't it? (gender discriminatory)

What I still don't understand is, this act had been amended several times and none had ever thought

about replacing the word 'widow' with 'wife'?

Anyways, it is, what it is, right?

So, even if I used 'wife', you should understand that it is 'widow', okay?

Then, all his sons.

Similar to sons, daughters.

Now, if one of his sons is dead (let's show dead person by putting them in a box)

His successors/heirs will take his share.

Wife

son/sons

daughter/daughters

This is called as Rule of Representation.

This means, if an heir is dead, he/she will be represented by his/her heirs.

If the daughter is dead

Her heirs, son/sons, daughter/daughters

Now if this person is dead

He would be again represented by his widow, son/sons, daughter/daughters.

The same with this daughter too.

If this daughter and son are dead, the property will be succeeded by their daughters only.

These 4 person were added as heirs by the 2005 amendment.

They had been moved from class II heirs to class I heirs.

Now, lets, see how these persons are referred to in the act.

For instance, take this person, this is how he will be called in the act.

This is how this son will be shown in the act.

Each person will be shown by their line of ascent, moving upwards.

Here if a person is dead, instead of calling them as deceased, why are they called 'pre-deceased'?

Because, if their father's property was partitioned, they have died, hence the term "pre-deceased".

This is how this daughter will be shown in the act.

Reading like this will be quite hard to understand.

Hence, I explained to you drawing this chart.

And, how this son will be represented in the act?

How this daughter will be represented in the act?

And this son?

This is how each and every person will be represented in the act.

Now, let's see a quick summarisation and then see how much share each gets.

These 4 persons were added by the 2005 amendment.

Now let's see how much share each of these persons get.

Mother gets 1/6th share, same for widow, same for son,

same for this son, this deceased son, deceased daughter.

How each gets 1/6th share.

Because there are 6 persons (Mother, wife, son, daughter, deceased son, deceased daughter)

Deceased son and deceased daughter's share goes to their heirs.

The deceased daughter's share goes to her son and daughter.

Her 1/6th share, is split into 2 for her son and daughter.

So each 1/12th share.

Here the 1/6th share needs to be split among 3 persons.

But here too, this son is dead.

So his 1/18th share again split into 3 for his heirs.

Same for others too.

This daughter too is dead here, right?

Her share will again be divided into 2 for her heirs.

In case, if she had no son, her share will be completely taken by her daughter.

In case, if she had no daughter but only son, the son takes the whole share of his mother.

The same applies to the rest.

But if she had both son/sons and daughter/daughters, her share would again be split according to the number of her children.