2002 Supreme(SC) 1290
Jinia Keotin – Appellant
Versus
Kumar Sitaram Manjhi – Respondent
Judgement Key Points
- "By Section 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 children borne out of void or illegal marriages are not protected for inheritance to ancestral coparcenary property." [judgement_subject]
- "Defendants 8 to 11 are said to be not entitled to any share on account of the fact that the marriage of the 1st defendant with the 8th defendant was void for the reason that his first wife, Smt. Kamil Devi, was alive and the first marriage still subsisting." (!)
- "the children of Sahadeo through Smt. Jinia Keotin were held not entitled to any share in the coparcenary property in terms of Section 16(3) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, though they may claim to be entitled to their due share in the property of their parents." [1000075220001]
- "Section 16 of the Act, while engrafting a rule of fiction in ordaining the children, though illegitimate, to be treated as legitimate, notwithstanding that the marriage was void or voidable chose also to confine its application, so far as succession or inheritance by such children are concerned to the properties of the parents only." [1000075220003]
- "nothing contained in sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) shall be construed as conferring upon any child of a marriage, which is null and void or which is annulled by a decree a nullity under Section 12, "any rights in or to the property of any person, other than the parents, in any case where, but for the passing of this Act, such child would have been incapable of possessing or acquiring any such rights by reason of his not being the legitimate child of his parents."" [1000075220004]
- "In the light of such an express mandate of the legislature itself, there is no room for according upon such children who but for Section 16 would have been branded as illegitimate any further rights than envisaged therein by resorting to any presumptive or inferential process of reasoning, having recourse to the mere object or purpose of enacting Section 16 of the Act." [1000075220004]
JUDGMENT
D. Raju, J.-The plaintiff (1st respondent herein) filed the suit claiming for 1/6th share in Schedules A to D properties and 1/3rd share in Schedule E properties. From the indisputable facts on record, the ancestral properties have to be divided firstly between Sahadeo Manjhi, his brother Mahadeo Manjhi (defendants Nos. 1 and 2) and their mother Dukhani Keotin (defendant No. 7) each one getting 1/3rd share. Out of the 1/3rd share of Sahadeo Manjhi, the properties again will be equally divided in four parts each one of the sharers getting 1/4th share. Defendants 8 to 11 are said to be not entitled to any share on account of the fact that the marriage of the 1st defendant with the 8th defendant was void for the reason that his first wife, Smt. Kamil Devi, was alive and the first marriage still subsisting. The second marriage - remarriage, of 1st defendant with the 8th defendant after the coming into force of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 cannot be valid. The learned 2nd Additional Subordinate Judge, Dumka, passed a preliminary decree on 27.9.1983 in Title Suit No. 40 of 1975 (3 of 1983) for the 1/4th share of the plaintiff in the suit properties out of the 1/3rd, which has got
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