Family Law

Vellikannu v. R. Singaperumal

AIR 2005 SC 2587; (2005) 6 SCC 622

Citation: AIR 2005 SC 2587; (2005) 6 SCC 622
Court: Supreme Court of India
Date: 2005
Bench: Bench to be verified

Facts

The disputed property belonged to Ramasami Konar.
His only son, R. Singaperumal, murdered him on 10 October 1972.
Singaperumal was convicted under Section 302 IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Vellikannu was Singaperumal’s wife.
She filed a suit claiming a share in the property left by her murdered father-in-law.
She relied upon Sections 25 and 27 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.
Her argument was:
Section 25 disqualified her husband from inheriting because he murdered his father;
Section 27 deemed the murderer to have died before the victim;
therefore, she should be treated as the widow of a predeceased son and inherit as a Class I heir.
The Trial Court and First Appellate Court granted her a share.
The Madras High Court reversed those decisions and rejected her claim.
She appealed to the Supreme Court.

Issue

Whether the wife of a person who murdered his father can inherit the victim’s estate by treating her husband as a predeceased son.
Whether Section 27 creates a new line of succession through the disqualified murderer.

Rule

Section 25 HSA disqualifies a person who:
commits murder; or
abets the murder, from inheriting the property of the person murdered.
Section 27 provides that a disqualified heir is treated as having died before the intestate.
These provisions embody the principle that a person cannot benefit from their own crime.
The legal fiction in Section 27 is created to exclude the murderer from inheritance.
It is not intended to make the murderer a fresh stock of descent through whom other persons may claim the victim’s estate.
A claimant cannot obtain a better title through a person who was completely disqualified from succession.

Application

Singaperumal was Ramasami Konar’s only son and would ordinarily have inherited his property.
However, his conviction for murdering his father directly attracted Section 25.
He was therefore completely excluded from the succession.
Vellikannu attempted to use Section 27 in a manner that would indirectly restore the benefit which Section 25 had removed.
She argued that once her husband was deemed to have predeceased his father, she became the “widow of a predeceased son.”
The Supreme Court rejected this interpretation.
Section 27 does not actually transform the living murderer into a genuinely deceased person for every legal purpose.
The fiction operates only for determining the succession to the murdered person’s property.
Its purpose is to prevent:
the murderer from inheriting;
the murderer’s branch from using his wrongful act to obtain the estate.
Vellikannu’s right, if any, could arise only through her husband.
But her husband had acquired no interest in his father’s property because the disqualification operated at the moment succession opened.
Since no property vested in Singaperumal, nothing could pass through him to Vellikannu.
The Court also relied upon the equitable principle that murder cannot improve the succession position of the offender’s family.
Otherwise, a son who murdered his father could indirectly secure the property for his wife or descendants, defeating Sections 25 and 27.
Vellikannu was not independently a Class I heir of Ramasami Konar.
Her connection with the deceased was only through the disqualified son.
She therefore could not claim as though the disqualified murderer were an ordinary predeceased son.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court dismissed Vellikannu’s appeal.
Singaperumal was disqualified from inheriting his father’s property.
Vellikannu could not inherit through him or claim the status of widow of a predeceased son.
The murderer was not a fresh stock of descent.
Use this case for: neither a murderer nor a person claiming through the murderer can inherit the victim’s property.