Vellikannu v. R. Singaperumal

A son murdered his own father and was convicted for it. His wife then sued to inherit the murdered man's estate, arguing that her husband's disqualification meant he should be treated as having predeceased his father, leaving her as the sole surviving coparcener (a member who takes a birthright share in joint family property). The Supreme Court held that a person who cannot inherit because of the murder cannot pass on a better title to someone claiming through him.

Quick Revision

Parties

Vellikannu — appellant (plaintiff in the original suit); wife of the first defendant, R. Singaperumal. She sued for a declaration that she alone was entitled to inherit the entire estate of her father-in-law, Ramasami Konar.

R. Singaperumal — respondent No. 1 (first defendant); only son of Ramasami Konar. He murdered his father on 10 October 1972 and was convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.

Anr. (second defendant) — respondent No. 2; impleaded (added as a party) in the suit as a cultivating tenant claiming under the first defendant.

Procedural History

The judgment has no numbered paragraphs, so no paragraph numbers are cited.

1. The plaintiff filed Original Suit No. 87/1978 in the Court of the District Munsif, Melur, for a declaration that she alone was entitled to the estate of the late Ramasami Konar.
2. By order dated 31 March 1980 the Trial Court held that all the suit properties were joint family properties of Ramasami Konar and the first defendant, and that the second defendant was a cultivating tenant. It held the first defendant disqualified from claiming any right under Section 6 read with Sections 25 and 27 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. Applying the proviso (a clause that qualifies the main rule) to Section 6, it granted the plaintiff a decree for a half share.
3. The first defendant appealed. The Lower Appellate Court confirmed the Trial Court's finding but modified the decree so that it would be treated as a preliminary decree (a decree that declares rights but leaves final division for later). It held that the first defendant had to be treated as non-existent, and that the plaintiff became a Class I heir under Schedule 1 of the Hindu Succession Act, entitled to a share. The appeal was dismissed.
4. The first defendant filed a second appeal (Second Appeal No. 773 of 1983) before the High Court of Judicature at Madras. The High Court framed two substantial questions of law: (1) whether the criminal court's judgment was conclusive on exclusion from inheritance, and (2) whether the exclusion from inheritance covered enlargement of interest by survivorship (passing automatically to the remaining coparceners) under Section 6. On Question 1, the High Court held that the criminal court's judgment could be taken into consideration.
5. By order dated 6 March 1997, the learned Single Judge allowed the second appeal. The Single Judge held that the plaintiff could not claim one half share as coparcenary property under the proviso to Section 6; she would have been entitled to a half share only if father and son had not partitioned the property. The first defendant could not be said to have inherited any share from Ramasami Konar. The plaintiff could claim as a widow only if there was a succession to the victim's estate, and since there was none, Sections 25 and 27 did not even need to apply to defeat her claim; Section 6 itself did not apply either. Instead, the principle of justice, equity and public policy applied, and the first defendant was to be treated as non-existent. The judgments and decrees of both courts below were set aside, and the suit was dismissed.
6. The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court as Civil Appeal No. 4838 of 1999. The Supreme Court (Ashok Bhan and A.K. Mathur, JJ.) decided the appeal on 6 May 2005, in an opinion by A.K. Mathur, J.

Facts

1. The schedule properties in suit were the self-acquired properties (property a person gets through their own effort or funds, not by inheriting a joint family share) of the late Ramasami Konar.
2. R. Singaperumal, the first defendant, was the only son of Ramasami Konar. Vellikannu, the plaintiff, was his wife.
3. Ramasami Konar's own wife had already divorced him, remarried another person, and was living separately.
4. The first defendant married the plaintiff, and the two lived as husband and wife.
5. On 10 October 1972 the first defendant murdered his father, Ramasami Konar, and was convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to life imprisonment. The High Court confirmed the conviction but recommended that the Government reduce the sentence to the period already undergone. The first defendant was released in July 1975.
6. Because the first defendant had murdered his father, the plaintiff's case was that he was not entitled to succeed to the father's estate, and that he must be deemed to have predeceased his father under Sections 25 and 27 of the Hindu Succession Act. On this basis she claimed to be entitled, as his widow and as a coparcener, to the whole of the estate left by Ramasami Konar.
7. After his release, the first defendant lived with the plaintiff for some time, but she was later driven out of the house.
8. The second defendant was impleaded in the suit as a tenant claiming under the first defendant.
9. The plaintiff sought a declaration that she alone was entitled to inherit the entire estate of the deceased Ramasami Konar.
10. The first defendant contested the suit, denying that the plaintiff was the legal heir of Ramasami Konar.

Issues Raised

1. Is the judgment of the criminal court conclusive on the question of exclusion from inheritance in the succession proceedings?
2. Does the exclusion from inheritance of a disqualified heir also cover enlargement of his interest by survivorship, in light of Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act?
3. The sole male survivor of a coparcenary (the narrower body of family members who take a birthright share in ancestral property) has incurred disqualification under Sections 25 and 27. Can his wife, who claims only through her marriage to him, still succeed to the property?

Arguments Contended

For the appellant (Vellikannu):

• She was the sole female survivor of the joint Hindu family (a family of several generations sharing property and status together) property, her husband being disqualified. Under the proviso to Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, she claimed to be entitled to the whole of the estate as the sole surviving member of the coparcenary property, read with Section 8 of the Act, as a Class I heir.

For the respondent (R. Singaperumal):

• The disqualification attached to the son under Sections 25 and 27 applies equally to the wife, because she claims the estate only on the strength of her marriage to him. If he is disqualified, she is equally disqualified from claiming any property as a coparcener from the estate of her deceased father-in-law.

Court's Reasoning

Single opinion of A.K. Mathur, J. (for himself and Ashok Bhan, J.). The judgment has no numbered paragraphs, so no paragraph numbers are cited.

A.K. Mathur, J.

1. Noted: Sections 6, 8, 25 and 27 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 were set out. Section 6 provides that on the death of a male Hindu with an interest in Mitakshara coparcenary property, that interest devolves by survivorship upon the surviving coparceners, unless the proviso applies. The proviso says that if the deceased left a surviving female relative specified in Class I of the Schedule, the interest devolves by testamentary or intestate succession (inheritance under the general rules that apply when there is no valid will) instead of survivorship. The same rule applies to a male relative who claims through such a female.
2. Held: It was undisputed that Ramasami Konar's properties were coparcenary properties governed by Mitakshara law, and that he died intestate. So, as a matter of ordinary succession law, the property would have devolved by survivorship, subject to the proviso to Section 6.
3. Noted: Had the first defendant not murdered his father, he and the plaintiff would have succeeded in the ordinary course. The real question was the effect on succession when the son himself murdered the father.
4. Noted: The Court reproduced the law on the rights of a coparcener from Mulla's Hindu Law (15th Edn., 1982), S.V. Gupta's Hindu Law, and N.R. Raghavachariar's Hindu Law — Principles and Precedents (8th Edn., 1987). Mulla calls the interest of a coparcener an "undivided coparcenary interest", defined further in Section 235 of that treatise. Each coparcener has a fluctuating interest by birth, enlarged by deaths and diminished by births in the family, which becomes a definite share only on partition. The right of survivorship passes a deceased coparcener's interest to the surviving coparceners, who are not his legal representatives.
5. Noted: In State Bank of India v. Ghamandi Ram (AIR 1969 SC 1333), the Court had held that under the Mitakshara school all joint family property is held in collective ownership by the coparceners. Lineal male descendants up to the third generation acquire ownership by birth, and each member can demand partition. Till partition every member has ownership over the whole property jointly with the rest, and the interest of a deceased member lapses to the survivors on his death.
6. Noted: In State of Maharashtra v. Narayan Rao Sham Rao Deshmukh & Ors. ((1985) 2 SCC 321), the Court had held that a Hindu coparcenary is narrower than the joint family, and that only those who acquire an interest by birth are coparceners. The extent of a coparcener's share cannot be definitely stated while the family remains joint, since it is always liable to fluctuate.
7. Held: It followed that the first defendant and the plaintiff, as members of the joint Hindu family, would have inherited the property under Mitakshara law if the first defendant had not incurred the disqualification. The real question was whether the sole male survivor, having incurred disqualification, could still claim the property by survivorship — and if he could not, whether his wife, claiming only through him, could succeed in his place. The Court answered this in the negative.
8. Noted: Even before Sections 25 and 27 were enacted, a murderer of his own father was disqualified on the principle of justice, equity and good conscience (fairness applied where no statute directly covers the point). This principle was laid down by the Privy Council in 1924, in Kenchava Kom Sanyellappa Hosmani & Anr. v. Girimallappa Channappa Somasagar (AIR 1924 PC 209).
9. Held: The Privy Council had rejected any distinction between the murderer's legal and beneficial estate, holding: "The theory of legal and equitable estates is no part of Hindu law, and should not be introduced into discussion."
10. Held: The Privy Council had also held that title could not be claimed through the murderer. He should be treated as non-existent, not as one who forms the stock for a fresh line of descent.
11. Noted: The Privy Council had explained its own earlier decision in Gangu v. Chandrabhagabai ((1908) 32 Bom. 275). There the murderer's wife had been held entitled to succeed, but not because she deduced title through her husband. It was because a wife becomes a member of her husband's gotra (patrilineal clan) in her own right, a gotraja-sapinda (a blood relation within the same gotra). That decision, the Privy Council said, had no bearing on a case like the present one.
12. Noted: The Privy Council's ratio was that a murderer must, for the purpose of inheritance, be treated as if he were dead when the succession opened, and not as founding a fresh stock of descent. The exclusion extends to both the legal and the beneficial estate, so that neither the murderer himself can succeed, nor can succession be claimed through him.
13. Noted: The Privy Council's decision was subsequently followed in K. Stanumurthiayya & Ors. v. K. Ramappa & Ors. (AIR (29) 1942 Madras 277), Nakchhed Singh & Ors. v. Bijai Bahadur Singh & Anr. (AIR 1953 All. 759), Mata Badal Singh & Ors. v. Bijay Bahadur Singh & Ors. (AIR 1956 All. 707), and Minoti v. Sushil Mohansingh Malik & Anr. (AIR 1982 Bomb. 68).
14. Held: This position of law was incorporated into Section 25 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, which disqualifies from inheritance a person who commits or abets murder. Its Objects and Reasons expressly referred to the Privy Council's decision. They recorded that a murderer is disqualified on principles of justice, equity and good conscience, and is not to be regarded as the stock of a fresh line of descent but as non-existent when the succession opens.
15. Held: Section 27 makes this concrete: if a person is disqualified from inheriting under the Act, the property devolves as if that person had died before the intestate. The disqualified murderer is treated, by this legal fiction (a rule that treats something as true for a legal purpose, though it may not be factually true), as having predeceased the person he murdered.
16. Held: The combined effect of Sections 25 and 27 is that a murderer is totally disqualified from succeeding to the deceased's estate, and is treated as having no relationship whatsoever with the deceased's estate.
17. Held: Applying this to the facts, the first defendant could not inherit any property of his father, having murdered him, on the principle of justice, equity and good conscience; his own fresh stock of descent had ceased to exist. Once the son was totally disinherited, his entire stock — including his wife — stood disinherited with him.
18. Held: The first defendant himself was totally disqualified under Sections 25 and 27. The plaintiff, claiming only as his wife, could have no better claim to the property of the deceased Ramasami Konar than her husband himself had.
19. Held: The view of the learned Single Judge of the High Court was correct: the plaintiff was not entitled to inherit the estate of the deceased Ramasami Konar. The Single Judge had rightly set aside the orders of the two courts below.
20. Held: Since the appellant's claim as the first defendant's wife flowed entirely from his own right, it was first necessary to decide whether the first defendant could himself succeed or inherit. As he could not, the wife who claimed to succeed through the husband could not lay any claim to the property of her father-in-law either. The appeal was accordingly dismissed, with no order as to costs.

Authorities

• Kenchava Kom Sanyellappa Hosmani & Anr. v. Girimallappa Channappa Somasagar, AIR 1924 PC 209 — Privy Council decision followed and applied; held that a murderer is wholly disqualified, without distinction between legal and beneficial estate, and cannot found a fresh line of descent, so that no one can claim through him.
• Vedanayaga Mudaliar v. Vedammal — Madras High Court decision, referred to within the Privy Council's own reasoning in Kenchava; it had drawn a distinction between a disqualified heir's legal and beneficial estate, which the Privy Council rejected as no part of Hindu law.
• Gangu v. Chandrabhagabai, (1908) 32 Bom. 275 — distinguished (within the Privy Council's own reasoning, quoted by the Court); the murderer's wife succeeded there not through her husband, but in her own right as a member of his gotra.
• State Bank of India v. Ghamandi Ram, AIR 1969 SC 1333 — relied on for the incidents of a Mitakshara coparcenary: birth right, common possession, and lapse of a deceased member's interest to the survivors.
• State of Maharashtra v. Narayan Rao Sham Rao Deshmukh & Ors., (1985) 2 SCC 321 — relied on for the proposition that a coparcenary is narrower than a joint family and that a coparcener's share is only ascertained on partition.
• K. Stanumurthiayya & Ors. v. K. Ramappa & Ors., AIR (29) 1942 Madras 277 — noted as a decision that followed the Privy Council's ruling in Kenchava.
• Nakchhed Singh & Ors. v. Bijai Bahadur Singh & Anr., AIR 1953 All. 759 — noted as a decision that followed the Privy Council's ruling in Kenchava.
• Mata Badal Singh & Ors. v. Bijay Bahadur Singh & Ors., AIR 1956 All. 707 — noted as a decision that followed the Privy Council's ruling in Kenchava.
• Minoti v. Sushil Mohansingh Malik & Anr., AIR 1982 Bomb. 68 — noted as a decision that followed the Privy Council's ruling in Kenchava.

Also cited in footnotes: none. The judgment text, as available, has no footnotes.

Provisions mentioned

• Section 6, Hindu Succession Act, 1956: on the death of a male Hindu with an interest in Mitakshara coparcenary property, that interest devolves by survivorship on the surviving coparceners. The proviso is an exception: if the deceased left a surviving Class I female relative, or a male relative claiming through her, it devolves by succession instead. Explanation 1 defines a coparcener's interest as the share he would have got on a notional partition (a partition assumed to have happened, only to work out shares) immediately before his death, whether or not he could actually have claimed partition. Explanation 2 says the proviso does not let a person who had already separated from the coparcenary, before the deceased's death, claim a share on intestacy in that interest.
• Section 8, Hindu Succession Act, 1956: the property of a male Hindu dying intestate devolves first on Class I heirs, then Class II heirs (a lower-priority list of relatives who inherit only if no Class I heir exists), then agnates, and lastly cognates.
• Section 25, Hindu Succession Act, 1956: "A person who commits murder ... shall be disqualified from inheriting the property of the person murdered", or any other property in furtherance of the succession to which the murder was committed or abetted.
• Section 27, Hindu Succession Act, 1956: "If any person is disqualified from inheriting any property under this Act, it shall devolve as if such person had died before the intestate."
• Section 302, Indian Penal Code: punishment for murder; the first defendant was convicted under this section for killing his father.

Judgement

1. The appeal is dismissed.
2. No order as to costs.

The effect of dismissal is that the judgment of the learned Single Judge of the Madras High Court, holding that the plaintiff was not entitled to inherit the estate, stands affirmed, and the suit remains dismissed.

Legal Principle / Ratio

Disqualification under Section 25 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 is total: it bars the murderer from both the legal and the beneficial estate of the person murdered. By the fiction in Section 27, the disqualified murderer is treated as having died before the person he murdered, so he cannot found a fresh line of descent. No one can take a better title through a disqualified murderer than he himself had. A person who claims the estate only through their relationship to him — such as his wife — can claim no more than he could. Key holding: "The murderer should be treated as non-existent and not as one who forms the stock for a fresh line of descent."

Subsequent Treatment

Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma — Civil Appeal Nos. 32601-32602 of 2018; Supreme Court of India (three-judge Bench); Arun Mishra, S. Abdul Nazeer and M.R. Shah, JJ.; decided 11 August 2020.

• Use of this case: the Court cites Vellikannu v. R. Singaperumal as restating that a coparcener's share in coparcenary property is a fluctuating interest, not a fixed one, and settles only on partition (para 37).
• Extract reproduced: the Court reproduces this case's own passage on the son's vested interest by birth in coparcenary property, and the Mulla treatise passage describing the coparcener's undivided coparcenary interest (para 37).
• Context: Vineeta Sharma used this fluctuating-interest principle while deciding whether daughters get coparcenary rights under the 2005 amendment to Section 6, a different question from the murder-disqualification issue decided in this case.

Critical Analysis

Analysis based on the judgment text.

• The Court distinguishes Gangu v. Chandrabhagabai, where a murderer's wife succeeded in her own right as a member of her husband's gotra. It does not examine whether the appellant here could have had any similar independent basis for a claim. It treats her claim as resting entirely on her husband's disqualified status.
• The proviso to Section 6 lets a surviving Class I female relative take by succession instead of survivorship. The judgment does not separately analyse how this applies where that female relative is the disqualified coparcener's own wife, rather than the deceased's own widow or daughter. It reaches its conclusion through the general disqualification principle, not through the text of the proviso itself.
• The judgment does not discuss what would happen to any children of the first defendant and the plaintiff, leaving the position of further descendants of a disqualified coparcener unaddressed on these facts.

Significance

• The judgment confirms that disqualification under Section 25 of the Hindu Succession Act is complete, covering both the legal and beneficial estate, and not a partial or conditional bar.
• It extends the effect of disqualification beyond the murderer himself to anyone whose claim to the property rests only on a relationship to him, such as his wife.
• It traces the statutory scheme in Sections 25 and 27 directly to the pre-1956 Privy Council principle of justice, equity and good conscience, showing continuity between the earlier common law rule and the codified Hindu Succession Act.

Exam-Important Points

• Rule: Section 25 disqualifies a murderer (or abettor) from inheriting the property of the person murdered; Section 27 deems the disqualified person to have predeceased the intestate.
• Trap: the disqualification is not limited to the murderer himself — it also bars anyone, such as a wife, who claims the property only through him. A common exam error is treating the wife's claim as independent.
• Facts in one line: a son murdered his father in 1972; his wife later claimed the estate as his widow and coparcener; the Supreme Court held she could claim no more than her disqualified husband could.
• Historical root: the rule traces to the Privy Council in Kenchava Kom Sanyellappa Hosmani v. Girimallappa Channappa Somasagar, AIR 1924 PC 209, decided on principles of justice, equity and good conscience, before Sections 25 and 27 existed.
• Distinguish Gangu v. Chandrabhagabai (1908): there a widow succeeded not through her murderer husband, but in her own independent right as a gotraja-sapinda of the deceased — a narrow exception that did not apply on these facts.
• Key phrase to remember: the disqualified murderer is treated as non-existent, not as the start of a fresh line of descent.

Prepared from the full text of the judgment. This judgment has no numbered paragraphs.