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The Apex Court comprising Full Judge Bench of the Hon’ble Chief Justice, Justice AS Bopanna & Justice V Ramasubramanian have issued notice to the Center to seek its response upon a PIL titled Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India & Ors| WP(C) 1108/2020 to frame gender-neutral and religion-neutral guidelines of succession & inheritance & for declaring the discriminatory grounds of succession & inheritance violative of Article 14,15,21. 

“Neutrality & Uniformity in succession and inheritance is not only necessary to secure gender justice, gender equality & dignity of women but also essential to promote fraternity, unity and national integration, but, Centre has not taken any steps in this regard till date. Therefore, blatant form of discrimination that is the prejudice in the succession and inheritance on the basis of gender and religion is continuing.”, the plea stated. 

In the present matter, the plea was filed for issuance of directions in the form of writ of mandamus to the Union of India to remove the anomalies in the ground of succession and inheritance & make them gender neutral, religion neutral & uniform. Further it has also been prayed to direct the Law Commission of India to examine the laws related to succession & inheritance of the developed countries & International Conventions & prepare a report on “uniform grounds of succession & inheritance” for all citizens. 

Grounds 

• Implementing uniform grounds of succession and inheritance will strengthen constitutional ethos, as laid down in Part-III and IV of the Constitution of India and regarded as the heart and soul of the Constitution but due to State’s inaction, even after 73 years of independence and 70 years of becoming sovereign socialist secular democratic republic, gender-religion biased personal laws still exist.
• Inheritance right of daughters in coparcenary property is now equally available to them but equal right in spirit of the Articles 14, 15, 21 & 44 will remain a distant dream till the legislature overhauls the succession scheme under the 1956 Act.
• There is no logic behind providing separate succession & inheritance schemes on the basis of gender & religion. The 2005 amendment Act which claims to be progressive with respect to coparcenary right, grossly overlooked the fact that the primary scheme of succession under 1956 Act is manifestly arbitrary.
• An inequitable situation is created when a widow or unmarried daughter or other dependants who have no means to sustain themselves are deprived of their share either by will or assigning of entire property to the person chosen by testator as he/she has the power to dispose of self acquired or undivided coparcenary property. 
• The provisions in the Hindu Succession Act,1956 pertaining to succession of property upon the death of Hindu Male or Hindu Female are not only obsolete, outdated and unable to serve the needs of the day.
• All the personal laws relating to succession & inheritance hold primitive concepts and need to be rationalized and codified in spirit of the Articles 14, 15, 21, 44 & international conventions.

Reliance was placed on the Apex Court judgement in National Legal Service Authority [(2014)5SCC 438], Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan [(2014) 11 SCC 477] and Jeeja Ghosh [(2016) 7 SCC 761] in which it was observed that right to dignity implies right to not be perceived as unequal or inferior individual in society to contend that in other words it implies the right to equal social standing & perception. Reference has also been made to Joseph Shine v. Union of India [(2019) 3 SCC 39] in which it observed that the law that treats women differently based on stereotypes causes direct aront to women’s dignity and violates Articles 14, 15 & 21. Reference was also made to Md Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum [(1985) 2 SCC 556] , Sarla Mudgal, José Paulo Coutinho v. Maria Luiza Valentia Pereira [(2019) SCC ONLINE SC 1190], ABC v. State NCT of Delhi ](2015) 10 SCC 1], John Vallamattom v. Union of India [{2003} 6 SCC 611], Ahmedabad Women Action Group (1997) 3 SCC 573 & Jordan Diengdeh v SS Chopra [(1985) 3 SCC 62] to contend that in the catena of judgements the Apex Court has reiterated the need of uniform civil code.