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In a path-breaking judgement by the Supreme Court of India, it ruled that a woman’s right over property under the Hindu law is absolute.
Supreme Court recently ruled that a woman’s right over property under the Hindu law is absolute. The court by giving this decision upheld the decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in the same matter.
The case was of a widow who transferred property given to her as ‘maintenance’ in her will. A bench of justices MY Eqbal and C Nagappan ruled that she had the right to bequeath property and enjoyed the full right to said property even after her death. The Andhra Pradesh High Court reversed the trial court’s findings that said a woman had a limited right to property after death and the property can be given to male heirs.
The case was complicated. P. Venkata Subba had three wives. Subba in 1920 willed one of his properties to his third wife, Veeraraghavamma, who did not have a child. Veeraraghavamma executed a will to transfer the property after her death to Pentapati Subba Rao. However, after her death, a son from Subba’s second wife sold the property to Sarathy. The case was between Sarathy and Pentapati Subba Rao. The trial court had upheld the sale to Sarathy and said the woman had limited right to enjoy property after her death.
The apex court ruled while citing Section 14(1) of the Hindu Succession Act:
It is well settled that under the Hindu Law, the husbandhas got a personalobligation to maintain his wife and if he ispossessed of properties then his wife is entitled to a right to bemaintained out of such properties. It is equally well settledthat the claim of Hindu widow to be maintained is not a mereformality which is to be exercised as a matter of concession, grace or gratis but is a valuable, spiritual and moral right.
It is important to understand the language being used by the court in this matter. It is asserting that maintenance isn’t to be considered a matter of “grace or gratis” but as a right. This in turn means that it isn’t symbolism; the woman can exercise her full right over it.
Cover image via Shutterstock
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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