Son’s and daughter’s right in father’s property
Sons and daughters have several rights as a coparcener. For instance, they get a right in ancestral property by birth; right to survivorship: if one coparcener dies the property gets divided among the rest. They are in joint possession and ownership of property and if they want partition, they can claim so by filing a partition suit.
Coparcener can also acquire a separate property and at the same time has right to alienate the property to any stranger his share in ancestral property and self-acquired property. Father can also gift property to his son and it won’t be treated as ancestral property which the son can then alienate to anyone he wants.
Can a father gift a property to his son?
In C. N. Arunachala Mudaliar vs C. A. Muruganatha Mudaliar the Supreme Court held that property gifted by a father to his son could not become ancestral property in the hands of the son simply by reason of the fact that he got it from his father. The court observed that the property of the grandfather can normally vest in the father as ancestral property.
The father gets ancestral property under two conditions i.e. inherits such property on the death of the grandfather or receives it by partition made by the grandfather himself during his lifetime. However, when the father obtains the grandfather’s property by way of gift, it is not considered an ancestral property.
Sons and daughters don’t have any claim on property gifted by grandfather
A gift from father to his son is not part of ancestral property as the son does not inherit the property on the death of the grandfather or receive it by partition made by the grandfather during his lifetime. The grandson has no legal right on such property because his grandfather chose to bestow a favour on his father which he could have bestowed on any other person as well.
Thus, the interest which he takes in such property must depend upon the will of the grantor and therefore, when the son has got the property from his father as a gift, his sons or daughter cannot claim part in it calling it ancestral property. He can alienate the gifted property to anyone he likes and in any way he likes. Such a property is treated as self-acquired property, provided there is no expressed intention in the deed of the gift by the grandfather while gifting the property to his son.
Sons and daughters have property rights only on the properties that have devolved upon their father and become ancestral property in the father’s hands.
