Despite laws, why inheriting parental property remains a challenge for women
Patriarchal social conditioning continues to legitimise women’s dispossession, with women themselves rarely embracing equality in inheritance rights, say experts and studies. When women do claim their share, it often ends in legal battle and ruptured relations
Firdousa Akhtar, 58, sat patiently on a bench in a lawyer’s chamber in Kashmir awaiting her turn to know the status of her case. Her eyes were moist, there were visible signs of fatigue on her face, but her resolve was unshaken. For the past 35 years — since 1990 — Firdousa has been fighting a legal battle against her brother for her share in her parents’ property. A resident of...
Firdousa Akhtar, 58, sat patiently on a bench in a lawyer’s chamber in Kashmir awaiting her turn to know the status of her case. Her eyes were moist, there were visible signs of fatigue on her face, but her resolve was unshaken. For the past 35 years — since 1990 — Firdousa has been fighting a legal battle against her brother for her share in her parents’ property. A resident of Balpora in Kashmir’s Shopian district, known for its high-quality apple production, the 58-year-old has lost count of the times she has made the rounds of courts and the deputy commissioner’s office.
“My father owned 23 kanals (a unit of land measurement, one kanal equals 0.125 acres) of fertile land, ideal for apple cultivation. But I received nothing — not even a penny,” she lamented. “I have spent half of my life in courts, often going without food and water, attending every single hearing. But I will keep waiting until justice is done.”
Firdousa, whose husband works as a labourer, has five children; two sons and three daughters. “Owing to my financial condition, I couldn’t even afford education for my children. Two of my sons, aged 19 and 17, also work as labourers. I make a little money rearing cattle, but several times in the past years, I have had to sell the animals just to be able to pursue my case,” she said. According to Firdousa’s lawyer, she initially spent Rs 20,000 when she filed the case against her brother. Each subsequent lawyer’s visit costs her approximately Rs 1,500.
Accusing her brother of preparing “fake documents, citing as witnesses people who were no longer alive”, to disinherit her, Firdousa claimed that in 2008, she managed to have those documents declared null and void. But her wait for her rightful share in her parents’ property continues.
Firdousa’s is by no means a lone, or even rare, case.
Also read: How a group of villagers in Kerala grew a forest to curb riverbank soil erosion
ActionAid India, an organisation working with the poor and marginalised, in a 2024 report titled “Property Rights of Women: A Study of Laws & Customs Related to Property and Inheritance in India to Promote Pathways to Gender Justice, observed, “Since birth, women have been ideologically and culturally conditioned to accept their exclusion from property matters…. Consequently, women often accept and acknowledge the ‘ideal pattern’ of property and land being inherited by males… The patrilineal ideology continues to dominate, and women rarely voice or embrace their equality in inheritance rights with other claimants."
The exclusion is often more cultural than legal. Citing the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act of 2005, which is applicable also to Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, the report stated it “eliminated gender discrimination” in coparcenary properties, ensuring “both male and female heirs had equal rights to inherit ancestral property”. The report went on to look at inheritance laws for other religions, when the properties are intestate, or left without a will, adding, “Women receive inheritance shares under Islamic law”, though their share is typically less. Inheritance laws for Christians and Parsis, too, make no distinction based on gender under the Indian Succession Act of 1925, the report added. However, “the property rights of tribal women in India are still governed by traditional customary laws that often deny them succession or partition rights, especially in relation to agricultural lands,” the report stated. However, a Supreme Court verdict earlier this year reportedly upheld inheritance rights for tribal women even in the absence of explicit customary laws, observing that “unless otherwise prescribed in law, denying the female heir a right in the property only exacerbates gender division and discrimination, which the law should ensure to weed out”.
Like Firdousa, 65-year-old Sajida (identified by first name only), a resident of Padpawan village of Shopian, has been fighting for her rightful share in her parents’ property for the past 15 years. “My husband has passed away. I have three daughters and three sons, two of whom are physically disabled. Fifteen years have passed, but I am still waiting for my right,” she said. Sajida claimed her father had divided his property equally between her and her brother, but after her parents’ death, her brother seized control over the property and forced her out.
Srinagar-based women’s rights activist Nadiya Shafi Gadda has voiced concern over the widespread denial of property rights to women in Jammu and Kashmir, describing it as a product of deep-rooted patriarchy and social stigma. “I have witnessed hundreds of cases where women live in misery but remain silent because of the taboo attached to speaking out,” Gadda said. Gadda noted that very few women have the financial means or courage to take legal action, and those who do often face harsh social criticism. “The saddest part is that many parents still refuse to stand by their daughters,” she said.
Speaking to The Federal, Iyce Malhotra from the Policy Research Unit of ActionAid Association said, “Across communities, women’s labour sustains families and economies, yet their names remain absent from the land they till and the homes they build. Property is not just about ownership — it represents dignity, security, and power. Until women can claim these spaces as their own, justice will remain partial and patriarchy intact.”
She added, “Securing women’s property rights requires more than legislative parity; it demands dismantling the customary and social systems that legitimise women’s dispossession. Legal frameworks must go beyond symbolic inclusion to ensure enforcement, raise awareness, and promote collective ownership models that empower women at the community level. Recognising women as equal stakeholders in land and property is not merely a gender issue — it is fundamental to economic justice, social equity, and democratic governance.”
Suman Devi, 50, along with her two sisters, Meenakshi and Pratibha, runs a small crèche for children in a single room of their family property in Delhi’s Mayur Vihar. “The roof leaks when it rains. Sometimes rainwater pours through the roof making it impossible for us to operate the creche. We can’t repair or renovate the place because of stay orders from the Delhi high court,” said one of the sisters.
She recalled, “When our father was alive, all three of us sisters and our brother lived together in this house. But towards the end of our father’s life, our brother grew close to him. He signed a will, which our brother then produced, claiming that the entire property belonged to him. We were unmarried at that time — it was 2005 — and we filed a probate case in the Delhi High Court, stating that the will was fake and signed without our knowledge.”
The court later issued an order in their favour and put a stay on the entire property, said Devi. Since then, the three sisters have been living in and running their small crèche from this room. “We are unmarried and struggling. Even though the court favoured our case, the final hearing has been delayed for the past six years because of the long list of pending cases. We are the ones suffering,” she added.
Firdousa Akhtar, with her lawyer. For the past 35 years, Firdousa has been engaged in a legal battle with her brother for her share of her parental property. Photo by Basharat Amin
According to Delhi-based activist Shabnum Hashmi, only a minuscule portion of Indian women receive their rightful share of family property. Hashmi accused brothers of being the main perpetrators of injustice against women when it came to inheriting parental property. “From an early age, girls are told, ‘This [the parental house] is not your home; you will go to another home [after marriage],’ which reinforces the idea that they do not belong there or deserve an equal share. The biggest bottleneck in ensuring women’s right to ancestral property is greed [of male relatives] — men want to dominate and keep control.”
Supreme Court advocate Sitwat Nabi, cited cases such as the 1970 Supreme Court judgment in the Punithavalli Ammal v. Ramalingam and another (in which an adopted son had challenged a widow’s settlement of a portion of the family property to one of her daughters; the apex court had dismissed the plea), to highlight how courts have consistently upheld women’s rights to property. Article 14 (Equality Before Law) and Article 15 (Prohibition of Discrimination on Grounds of Religion, Race, Sex, Caste, or Place of Birth ) of the Indian Constitution form the cornerstone of women’s right to equality in inheritance, she added.
Outlining the legal remedies available to women in case their property has been transferred or sold without their knowledge, Nabi added, “A woman can file a suit for injunction to stop any further alienation of the property until the case is settled,” she said. “If a will left by the parents is being used by a brother or any heir to deny her rights, it can be challenged in court on grounds of illegality, fraud, or undue influence. And if a sale deed has been executed without her knowledge, she can file for cancellation of the transaction by proving her entitlement to that property.”
The cost of such legal action, however, is not just financial but also emotional. Women engaged in a legal tussle with their brothers for the right to their parents’ properties talk of estrangement from their siblings.
Like a 38-year-old woman from Haryana, engaged in a lawsuit with her brother since 2023, who spoke to The Federal on condition of anonymity. “I have three children, and my husband works in a private company, earning between Rs 10,000 and 12,000 a month. We’ve been living in a rented room for five years because my in-laws also cheated my husband out of his share of his family property,” she alleged. The woman added: “Somehow, we managed to get a loan and in 2022, we built a small house. My widowed mother and brother had assured me they would either help us financially or give me my share of my parents’ property, which includes 10 acres of agricultural land and a two-storey house. However, once we managed to build our house, my brother refused to give me my share.”
The Haryana resident sought legal recourse against her brother, but ever since their relationship, she claimed, was “ruined”. “He no longer treats me like a sibling, someone born of the same parents.”
In a reflection perhaps of the social conditioning that still views the son as the primary beneficiary of family property, the woman added, “I would never have asked him [for my share] if we were financially stable, but we are paying EMIs and struggling to afford our children’s education. We can barely make ends meet.”
Desperation, and not an assertion of right, is what drives many of these women to claim their share in the family property.
“I spent my entire life in my parental home, cared for my brother’s children, but now my brother seems thirsty for my blood. There were only two of us—me and my brother—but alas, he has abandoned me,” rued Sajida.
Firdousa too talks about a break in relations with her brother since she claimed a share in her parents’ property. “Since I took legal action against him, I have not had a glass of water in my parental house,” she said.
Talking about the intense mental trauma she has been under, she added, “I can’t sleep at night. I keep thinking about how my brother disowned me and deprived me of my rightful share.”
