The judgment, passed by a bench of justice Mukundakam Sharma and justice AR Dave, is related to an appeal filed by Sudam Shankar Kshirsagar and co-members of his Hindu joint family.
It doesn’t pay to form a Hindu undivided family (HUF) in Maharashtra as individual members lose the right to hold “excess” land. The government can acquire their estate under the Maharashtra Project Affected Persons Rehabilitation Act, 1986.
In other words, if individual members before entering the fold of a Hindu joint family have permissible areas of land, the combined area exceeds the permissible limit once an HUF is created.
In a significant ruling that could discourage Hindu families from legally declaring themselves as ‘joint’, the Supreme Court (SC) has said that “once a Hindu joint family is held to be a person” its land holding has to be seen in light of the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1996. The expression ‘person’ includes any company or association or body of individuals like a joint Hindu family.
The judgment, passed by a bench of justice Mukundakam Sharma and justice AR Dave, is related to an appeal filed by Sudam Shankar Kshirsagar and co-members of his Hindu joint family. He challenged the legality of the notification issued by Maharashtra under section 4(1) of the land act.
He sought the quashing of an acquisition notification, saying the total land holding of his joint family is 12.6 hectares.
Each member of the family being entitled to hold 2.53 hectares.
He argued that under the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961, each member is entitled to retain his or her share in the joint family. He argued that the land acquisition law allows individual members to retain their share and the combined land would not become excess for takeover.
The Bombay high court dismissed the petition and held that the Hindu joint family is a ‘person’ and the holdings of its individual coparceners would be covered under the rehabilitation act.
The SC bench held the 1961 act doesn’t apply to Kshirsagar’s case, but the 1986 act does.
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