Bombay High Court: Kids from 2nd marriages can claim parents’ properties only after their death

Source – freepressjournal.in

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently held that children from second marriages can claim share in properties of their parents, but only after the death of their parents and not during their lifetime. A single-judge bench of Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi pronounced the ruling last month while dealing with a suit filed by a man’s children from a second marriage. The children had sought partition of their father’s ancestral property, which was opposed by the father and his children from the first marriage.

Justice Phansalkar-Joshi while dealing with the dispute, referred to several judgements passed by the Bombay HC, the Supreme Court of India and also several other HCs. Having referred to several rulings, Justice Phansalkar-Joshi said, “It is authoritatively laid down that the children of a void marriage, though are regarded as legitimate, such children would not be entitled to any share in the properties, which are the ancestral co-parcenary joint family properties of their father. Their right to claim share remains limited only to the extent of the separate property of their father, but, in that property, they cannot make any claim to it during the lifetime of their father. Their rights in the separate properties of their father will accrue only on the death of the father and that too, by way of succession.”

“Thus, for the children born to the second wife, who are rightfully called as legitimate, their right to get share, whether in the co-parcenary joint family properties or in the property of their parents, arises only after the death of their parents and not during the lifetime of their parents,” the court ruled while rejecting the pleas filed by the man’s children from 2nd marriage.