In Brief
The Supreme Court resolved a dispute over property rights of children born from void or voidable Hindu marriages whose legitimacy is statutorily conferred under the Hindu Marriage Act 1955. The Court held that while Section 16 grants such children legitimacy equal to those born of valid marriages, Section 16(3) expressly limits their property rights to parental property only. Critically, these children do not become coparceners in a Mitakshara Hindu Joint Family by birth. Their share in ancestral property is calculated only after ascertaining their parent's notional share (as if partitioned immediately before death) under the Hindu Succession Act 1956. They inherit from the parent's ascertained share alongside other Class I heirs, not from the coparcenary itself.
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