Personal Private Properties Follow Personal Succession Law

The dispute arose within the erstwhile royal family of Kapurthala over whether certain properties were indivisible estate properties governed by primogeniture, or family properties liable to partition under Hindu law.

The appellants traced their claim to the rule of primogeniture and argued that, as the eldest male lineal descendant and recognised ruler of Kapurthala, the Brigadier had succeeded to the properties as absolute owner. The respondents, on the other hand, claimed that the properties were ancestral and coparcenary, and therefore divisible among the family members.

The Supreme Court noted that the litigation had moved through two rounds before the High Court. The first round had accepted the partition claim, but after review the Single Judge held in favour of the Brigadier, and the Division Bench affirmed that view. The present appeal challenged that result.

The Court examined the competing claims to the properties and the effect of the royal succession arrangement. It drew a distinction between properties that devolved by primogeniture as part of the ruler’s estate and properties that were declared to be the ruler’s personal private properties. The Court held that once properties are declared to be personal private properties of the ruler, they do not devolve by primogeniture. They devolve according to the applicable personal law, whether Hindu or Muslim law, and later under the Hindu Succession Act where relevant.

On that reasoning, the Court concluded that the High Court had erred in treating the properties as exclusively governed by primogeniture. It held that the Division Bench decision could not override the earlier three-Judge Bench line of authority referred to in the judgment, including the principles drawn from Travancore, Talat Fatima Hasan, and Faridkot.

The Court also found that three of the four immovable properties were in the joint names of family members and were therefore liable to division between the joint holders, regardless of whether primogeniture or Hindu law applied. As to the remaining property at Mussoorie, the Court held that it would devolve under Hindu law and was divisible among the family members.

The judgment therefore set aside the High Court’s decision and allowed the appeal in part. A preliminary decree of partition was directed to be drawn in accordance with the shares identified by the Court.

Practical takeaway: in royal family property disputes, a declaration that property is the ruler’s personal private property can take it out of primogeniture and bring it under personal succession law.