204th Report

·         On February 5, 2008 Law Commission submitted its 204th Report on the Hindu Succession Act, 1956; Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Justice AR. Lakshmanan, former Supreme Court Judge presented Report to the Union Law Minister Dr. Hans Raj Bhardwaj

·         By the 2005 Amendment Act, four (4) categories of heirs which were hitherto placed in Class II were elevated to Class I heirs namely :

o        Daughter’s son’s son, (ii) Daughter’s daughter’s daughter; (iii) Daughter’s son’s daughter; and (iv) Son’s daughter’s daughter. While adding these categories to Class I, the corresponding entries in class II were not deleted.

·         There was thus overlapping between class I and class II. In respect of these categories, the Commission has recommended that these four (4) categories should be deleted from class II heirs.

·         The Commission has also suggested that the daughter’s son’s son and son’s daughter’s son should also be added in Class I.

o        It may be recalled that the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 was amended in 2005 by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 in order to give effect to the recommendations made by the Commission in its earlier (174th) Report in respect of property rights of women under the Hindu Law of Succession.

·         The underlying idea was to remove the discrimination as contained under section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 by giving equal rights to daughters in the Hindu Mitakshara coparcenary property as the sons have.

·         Seeking to introduce radical changes in laws related to prevention of child marriage and protection of rights of women, Law Commission recommended to bring a legislation declaring all marriages between minors as null and void.

·         At present, there is no law to declare such marriages as void even though the Hindu Marriage Act and the other laws fix marriages for a woman at 18 and a man 21 years.

·         Since under the definition of Section 375 of the IPC, the consensual age for a woman for sexual relation is 16, the commission could not go beyond it in recommending all marriages between a man below 21 years and woman below 18 as void.

·         But the recommendations of the panel fall short of the demand of the National Commission of Women, which had sought amendment to Section 375 of the IPC to increase the sexual consent age to 18 from the existing 16 to bring uniformity in all laws.

• It also recommended that the registration of all marriages should be made compulsory as had been recommended by the Supreme Court