SC notice to UP and Uttarakhand on gender discrimination laws | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought answers from the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand on a PIL seeking to erase gender discrimination laws in the two states that deprive a daughter of her share of parental property after marriage and a widow from her share of the marital property after her remarriage.
A three-judge bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud issued notice to the two states on the PIL filed by Shweta Gupta as her counsel KC Jain argued that SC had received a petition in 2019 seeking similar relief regarding to gender-discriminatory provisions Hindu Succession Act. The petitioner contends that under Section 109 of the UP Revenue Code, 2006, when a woman (who has inherited land from her father) dies, her land vests in her husband’s heirs, instead of her own heirs.
Likewise, the provision stripped a daughter’s right of ownership of land she inherited from her father after marriage. The same provision also provided that if a widow remarries, she is divested of the land she had inherited from her deceased husband, as it would go to the next surviving heir of the last male holder of the land.
The petitioner wanted to know “whether the marital status of a woman can be determinative of her identity as to whether or not she is entitled to inherit an interest in a land, while the marital status of a man has no significance under the UP Revenue Code the succession”.