Intestate succession for Hindus is governed by the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, and it applies to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. Muslims, Christians, Parsis and those married under the Special Marriage Act are governed by different rules.
A Hindu male dying intestate
The property devolves first upon the heirs in Class I of the Schedule. They take simultaneously and to the exclusion of all others, with shares calculated under Section 10, including its rules for branches of predeceased children. Class I includes:
- The widow
- Sons and daughters, who take equally
- The mother
- Children of a predeceased son or daughter, and the widow of a predeceased son, who take the share their parent or husband would have taken
Note who is not in Class I: the father, and brothers and sisters. They fall in Class II and inherit only if there is no Class I heir at all.
The order is set by Section 9: the Class I heirs take simultaneously and to the exclusion of all others, and within Class II those in the first entry are preferred to those in the second, and so on down the entries.
How the shares are actually worked out
"Equal shares" is the right headline but Section 10 is the working rule, and it is not one share per person. Four rules do the arithmetic:
- All the widows together take one share. Two widows share a single share between them, they do not take one each.
- The surviving sons, daughters and the mother each take one share.
- The heirs in the branch of each predeceased son or daughter take one share between them, not one share each.
- Within a predeceased son's branch, his widow and his surviving sons and daughters take equal portions, and the branch of his own predeceased son takes the same portion.
A worked example. A man dies leaving a widow, two sons, one daughter and his mother. That is five shares, so each takes one fifth. Now assume one son predeceased him leaving a widow and two children: the estate still divides into five, and that son's widow and two children share his one fifth between them, a fifteenth each. The mother's share is the one people forget, and leaving her out of the mutation application is the most common defect we see in Bengaluru khata files.
Sons and daughters inherit equally in intestate succession, and always have under the 1956 Act. That is separate from the 2005 amendment, which dealt with a daughter's right by birth in coparcenary property. Two different rights, frequently conflated.
A Hindu female dying intestate
Section 15 sets a different order. Her property goes first to her sons, daughters including children of a predeceased child, and her husband; then to the husband's heirs; then to her mother and father; then to the father's heirs; then the mother's heirs. Section 16 adds a source rule: property she inherited from her father or mother goes back to the father's heirs if she leaves no children, and property inherited from her husband or father-in-law goes to the husband's heirs in the same circumstances.
To be precise about the mechanics, the source rule is in Section 15(2) and it operates only in the absence of any son or daughter, including the children of a predeceased child. If she leaves a child, the ordinary order in Section 15(1) applies and the property does not go back to the source. Section 16 then supplies the distribution rules: heirs in one entry are preferred to those in a later entry and those in the same entry take simultaneously; the children of a predeceased child take the share their parent would have taken; and where the property devolves on the husband's or the father's or the mother's heirs, it does so in the same order and on the same rules as if the property had been theirs and they had died intestate immediately after her.
This is where a great many Bengaluru title disputes begin, because a flat inherited by a widow from her husband and held for twenty years does not devolve on her own parents' family if she leaves no children. It goes back to the husband's heirs.
What to do practically
- Obtain the death certificate and a legal heir certificate.
- For bank deposits and securities, obtain a succession certificate where the institution requires it.
- For immovable property, apply for mutation in the revenue records in the names of the heirs.
- If the heirs wish to divide unequally or consolidate shares, execute a registered release deed or partition deed.
For a death governed by the amended Section 6(3), the deceased coparcener's interest is calculated on the statutory notional-partition basis and then devolves by testamentary or intestate succession, not survivorship. Identify the property and the applicable dates before calculating that interest and the heirs' shares.
One caution on the sequence above. Mutation is a revenue entry and a khata is a municipal record for the levy of tax. Neither confers or decides title, and a mutation obtained by producing an incomplete list of heirs is routinely set aside later. Get the heir list right first, then mutate. Where you need a court grant for bank balances and securities, our note on the succession certificate sets out the petition and the documents.
Different personal laws apply to different families. Muslims are governed by their personal law of inheritance, which does not use the Class I and Class II structure at all and which allows only limited testamentary disposition. Christians and Parsis are governed by the intestacy provisions of the Indian Succession Act itself, with separate rules for Parsis. Nothing in this answer applies to them.
Finally, the obvious point that is worth stating because it is the reason this question exists. Every share described above is fixed by statute and nobody in the family can vary it. A short will, properly executed, replaces the whole exercise with whatever the deceased actually wanted, and costs almost nothing to make; our guide on how to make a will in India sets out what to put in it.